External wood - what maintenance will it need

STaN

I've bought a new apartment and im concerned about what will be needed to maintain the exterior including terrace floor, terrace railings, and external wood of the top floor

Please see the attached images:

Endymion

every year or two at the max you'll need to go out and sand it down a bit and give it a bit of a varnish. If you paint it, you'll need to remove flakes, strip it back abit, and repaint. You'll most likely have to treat the decking a couple times a year to remove moss and crap. When the paint or varnish strats to lift and wood starts going whitey grey, you really need to act.

Long and shor, is that exterior wood needs to be looked after, other wise it will go to crap all look very run down.

CJhaughey

I wouldn't use varnish it looks shabby very quickly.
Where possible I would use a form of Tung oil it applies easily with a rag , doesn't need sanding back before reapplication and protects the wood by not allowing water to penetrate.
Varnish needs to be painted on, and sanded back every year - a royal PITA.
Ask in your local shop about Tung Oil I got mine from WIBO in Sweden but Rustins Danish Oil is supposed to be good too.

Mellor

CJhaughey wrote:

I wouldn't use varnish it looks shabby very quickly.
Where possible I would use a form of Tung oil it applies easily with a rag , doesn't need sanding back before reapplication and protects the wood by not allowing water to penetrate.
Varnish needs to be painted on, and sanded back every year - a royal PITA.
Ask in your local shop about Tung Oil I got mine from WIBO in Sweden but Rustins Danish Oil is supposed to be good too.

Danish Oil, Tung Oil or Teak Oil. Should find one of them easily enough.

artieanna

very nice!!!
The main thing you need to do is protect the wood from water penetrating it as this causes the rot and ugly discoloration. any exterior wood treatment is adequate (read the label about application) there is good selection in most hardware stores. If moss and algae are or could be a problem get a treatment that has a built in prevention of such.

varnish requires alot of work because prior to each treatment you need to sand it back and it can blister and crack.

You'll need to apply two coats and defininitly use a mask if its strong smelling as it can cause irritation.

thetourist

you need to decide whether you want the grey white sunkissed look that you see on decking in the US or whether you want the wood to retain it's natural colour - brown --- if you do then you need to put on varnish or oil etc with a uv block otherwise get oil or varnish without it and the wood will go white grey over time - very nantucket !!!

i have tons of wood on the outside of my house and also rationel windows so i painted all the wood with aquatop which is sort of "hammerite for wood" - very expensive but lasts a long time - it's what rationel put on their windows - very easy to apply - water based - looks like glue - am very happy with it - the two coats we did a year ago on the facia and soffit are showing basically no signs of wear and we live at the top of a mountain with bad weather
it is a very forgiving substance and you dont have to do the same prep work you would have to with some products - of course if a very smooth finish up close is required then maybe it wouldnt do - as it has a rugged look about it when brushed on but i love it - also it's quite yellow/orange so you;d have to see if that worked for you - it is supposed to be extremely hard wearing though - a guy told me that he only puts it on every 5 years]

whatever you do treat it with somehting before the end of the summer because wood deteriorates rapidly without treatment

i would definitely give it a good inspection twice a year to keep an eye on things

ps - dont forget the underside of the deck - however you're going to manage that

Neverends

How are you supposed to oil the underside of a deck - is this required for normal garden deck also? Surely not!

Endymion

CJhaughey wrote:

I wouldn't use varnish it looks shabby very quickly.

If you do the job right, and apply afew coats theres no problem. But yea, it takes work.

Wertz

Good advice so far but before doing ANY of that, try and find out from the previous owner or preferably the builder/developer, how the wood has been treated from it's original installation (as the building looks relatively modern).
It may have been factory treated or pre-finished with sealers and presevatives that may react with coatings suggested here...

thetourist

Wertz wrote:

Good advice so far but before doing ANY of that, try and find out from the previous owner or preferably the builder/developer, how the wood has been treated from it's original installation (as the building looks relatively modern).
It may have been factory treated or pre-finished with sealers and presevatives that may react with coatings suggested here...

yes this is quite important also

How are you supposed to oil the underside of a deck - is this required for normal garden deck also? Surely not!

no you dont have to normally - but that's because a) you cant and b)the weather cant really get at it too much either
obviously the deck in question here has it's underside exposed and so it would need treatment in the same way that any other exposed wood would need it
i suppose if he oils the deck then some oil will spill over and coat the bottom of it but .......... well personally i would try to do something with it occasionally or maybe put on something that would last a while

Wertz

Aye the other thing about the underside of the OP's deck is that even though it's more visible than the average decking, it still won't be subject to the rigours of sunlight rain and lying frost. I think it'sd be safe to say that you may only need to treat the underside once, for every three times you do the top surface.
For a job like that I'd suggest renting a mobile platform, like a cherry picker...getting that from ladders looks awkward and dangerous.

antoinolachtnai

Um, are you sure you actually own this deck? In many cases the management company owns the deck and grants you a licence to use it. They may also be responsible for the external maintenance (although in practice this will just get absorbed into your service charge, so you might be as well to do it yourself.)

Reyman

Just a general comment - the decking wood is very knotty and looks to me like some kind of cheap softwood. It's likely to need a lot of attention to preserve it

As against that, the facing timber seems to be a better quality type of timber with no evidence of knots. A more resilient wood perhaps.

But I'm only judging from the photos and you may be in a better position to decide?