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This next question, actually the same question, the same problem has come into me from two
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different subscribers recently. I'll read Fran's note here, but exactly the same situation
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is happening with Alan as well. So Fran writes, we just had our deck stained this past May
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with bare cedar natural tone, photos included. Now our deck looks like the bottom three photos
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We've had thick fog and every morning our decks have been wet. If you wet the deck
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there are white spots that go away, but as soon as they dry, the spots come back. When we finally
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get some days of sunshine, should we put some clear deck stain on the decks? We're so disappointed
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as they looked beautiful for a couple of weeks. Now this has happened. We've used the same stain
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for years and never had a problem previously. So Alan has the same problem, same sort of
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some white blotches and also some darker areas which look pretty poor. I think two things are
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going on here. First of all, the dark areas. In both cases, in Fran's case and in Alan's case
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the old finish was stripped and a deck brightener was added to bring up the natural bright color of
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the wood and then the stain was applied. But in neither case was sanding done. Looking at the
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photos they've sent me, it looks very much like some of the gray from weathering because the
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previous finish had failed. Some of that weathering was not completely removed or brightened with the
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brightener and that area absorbs more stain so it gets darker. I see this sort of thing all the time
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and there's really no substitute for sanding back to bare wood on a deck that you're refinishing
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I wouldn't recommend starting that sanding process right from the get-go. It's far better
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to strip off all of the old finish you can get off with some sort of water soluble
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deck stripper. They make non-toxic ones that won't hurt your gardens or your lawn
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Then after it dries, after you've pressure washed that gunk off, let it dry, bone dry, and then sand
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it with an 80 grit abrasive. Ideally in a six inch random orbit sander. That's a handheld sander but
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it's pretty powerful and it can cover a lot of ground. So that's the solution or rather the
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prevention for the gray streaking that these people are having trouble with. But also I've
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noticed that unless a deck finish is fully dry and that can take three or four or five days
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it can be susceptible to whitening from moisture. It's almost like it absorbs some of the moisture
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and it makes it look cloudy and white. Now in my experience if you leave things alone
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and let full drying occur, you know once wet weather stops, that problem will most likely go
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away. At least it has in my experience. So you know that's the issue with decks and as I said
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fairly common problem. But sanding, that's the way around it
