A deck fails faster than the fence beside it. The boards lie flat. Every plank takes overhead sun from mid-morning until the shade of the house reaches it, April into October. Rain and sprinkler water sit in the gaps and the open grain instead of running off the way they run off a picket. Then people walk on it. Same cedar, same stain, and the deck wants attention about twice as often.
We stain wood decks: cedar and pressure-treated pine, which is most of what is out there. We do not stain composite, replace boards, or fix framing. We get an existing wood deck clean, dry, and coated with an oil-based stain that goes into the board instead of sitting on top of it. Deck staining runs $3–$7 per square foot, firm by text before we come out.
Why Austin decks go gray, then soft
Three things work on a deck board that leave a fence picket alone. Angle: a horizontal board catches the full noon sun, and UV is what bleaches the surface gray. Water: a picket sheds rain in seconds, while a deck board holds it in the gaps and in every check until it evaporates, which is where cupping and the mildew line along each board edge come from. Traffic: the path from the back door to the grill and the top two stair treads wear through before the rest of the deck has faded.
South- and west-facing decks with no roof are the hard case. A deck under a pergola gets a year or two more out of every coat.
Cedar, pressure-treated pine, and composite
Cedar takes stain the way it should. A new cedar deck needs 4–8 weeks to dry out before it will accept stain, less in July.
Pressure-treated pine is the most common deck around Austin. Fresh treated lumber is loaded with water and treatment solution, and stain sprayed onto it beads up and never bonds. The test: sprinkle water on a board. If it soaks in within a minute, the deck is ready; if it beads, wait. Weathered pine takes stain fine but drinks a lot of it, so it lands higher in the range than cedar of the same size.
Composite we do not stain, and we will say so rather than sell you a coat that will not stick. A tired composite deck wants a low-pressure wash with deck soap and the cleaner the manufacturer names.
How we stain a deck, step by step
- Inspect first. We probe the boards that stay damp with a screwdriver: along the house, at the base of the stairs, around the grill. Soft boards get flagged. Popped fasteners get set below the surface.
- Clean at low pressure, then brighten. A high-PSI wand furs a deck board. We rinse low and use a wood brightener to lift the gray fiber and mildew.
- Sand where a film is peeling. If a previous solid stain or paint is lifting, the new coat lifts with it. We sand those areas to sound wood.
- Dry 48 hours. Stain on wet wood does not penetrate. Two full days after cleaning and after any rain, which is why a deck is two trips.
- Mask. Siding, pool coping, the hot-tub cover, plants, the patio slab. Overspray on limestone does not come off.
- Spray and back-brush. Airless sprayer for coverage, brush right behind it. On a flat board the brush keeps lap marks from showing and pushes stain into the gaps and end grain.
- Second coat on the wear path. The door-to-grill route and the stair treads get a second wet-on-wet pass while the first is still open.
- Photos in your text thread. Every side, anything we flagged, and when the deck can take feet and furniture again.
Semi-transparent or solid stain on a deck
Semi-transparent is our default. It shows the grain, wears by fading rather than flaking, and the next coat is a clean and re-coat instead of a strip. What it will not do is hide a deck that is gray in the middle and tan under the furniture. Solid stain hides all of that. It is closer to paint and covers gray outright, but solid is a film, and on a deck a film shows wear as scuffs and bare patches exactly where people walk. The color guide tones work on a deck too, with one caveat: dark tones on a full-sun deck get hot underfoot.
Railings, spindles and stairs are the slow part
A 300-square-foot deck floor sprays in well under an hour. The railing around it does not. A standard railing with 2x2 spindles on 4-inch centers can run to 150 pieces, each with four faces and a gap you cannot spray through without stain landing on the neighbor's siding. Those get brushed, both sides. Stair treads take the most wear on the whole deck, and risers and stringers are all edges. That is why the quote form asks for a photo of the railing, and why a deck railed on three sides with stairs lands in the upper half of the range while the same footage of open, ground-level deck lands in the lower half.
Pool decks and hot-tub surrounds
A wood deck beside a pool takes chlorinated splash on top of everything else. Before we spray, the pool gets covered or the edge masked to the coping so oil stain does not float on the water. The deck has to be bone dry, so no swimming for a couple of days before the stain day, and feet off for 24–48 hours after. Hot-tub surrounds are a small deck with a lot of railing and a skirt: we stain the skirt and visible framing, mask the cover and controls, and leave the tub alone.
What we do not do, and what we tell you first
We do not replace deck boards, repair joists or a ledger, or rebuild stairs. On a fence we will swap a rotten picket so the stain has something to hold; a deck board is structural, and that is a carpenter's job. If the inspection finds soft boards, a ledger pulling away from the house, or stringers you can push a screwdriver into, we tell you before we stain and recommend a carpenter first. Stain over a rotten board is money into a board you will pull out next year.
What deck staining costs in Austin
Our range is $3–$7 per square foot. A ground-level cedar deck with a sound previous coat and no stairs lands in the lower half. A gray pine deck with railing all the way around, stairs, and a peeling solid coat to sand lands in the upper half. Every quote is built from the footprint we measure off satellite imagery, your photos of the railings, and the condition you describe, and it is firm before we come out. The deck staining cost page walks through what moves the number.
Where we stain decks
Straight answers
How often should a deck be stained in Austin?
Roughly twice as often as a fence. Full-sun decks in semi-transparent oil usually want a fresh coat every 1 to 2 years, shaded or covered decks every 2 to 3. The wear path from the door tells you before the rest of the deck does.
Can you stain a pressure-treated pine deck?
Yes, once it is dry enough. New treated lumber can need a couple of months in Austin's heat before water soaks in instead of beading. Older pine is ready as soon as it is clean and has had its 48 hours.
Do you stain composite decks?
No. Composite is not built to take a penetrating stain and a coat on it will not last. A faded or mildewed composite deck wants a low-pressure wash with deck soap and the cleaner the manufacturer names.
My deck was painted or solid-stained and is peeling. Can you fix it?
Usually. Where the film is lifting we sand to sound wood and re-coat, most often in a solid tone so the repair does not show. A deck peeling everywhere is a strip-and-sand job and costs more than a normal re-coat. We tell you which one you have in the quote.
Can you stain the deck and the fence on the same job?
Yes. The deck needs two trips because of the dry time, and the fence can be sprayed on the second one. Put both in the quote form and we price them together.
Also: fence staining. The same crew, the same oil-based stain, and the same firm-by-text quote apply to the cedar fence around the deck, and most fences are done in one day. See fence staining in Austin, or put the deck and the fence in one quote and we will spray the fence on the deck's stain day.