Anyone can give any good advice on re-staining /or re-painting a deck?

Question

have old faded paint on a wooden deck that I am wishing to repaint.or restain.

First of all could anyone give advice as to which would be best to do for a deck with very old wood?

And secondly , is it better to remove all the old paint or stain first or is it okay to actually paint or stain over it?

why and how so?

Thanks for your answers!

Answer 1

First, wash it down and let it dry;  then belt-sand any rough or peeling spots, THEN stain it.  Paint just goes on to wood, stain goes INTO it and is much better for it.

Answer 2

it sounds like you have regular paint on the deck now, therefore Id recommend paint on top again.  As if you were to go to stain you would have to remove all the paint and sand the wood.  It is so much easier to repaint then to stain, especially when the deck is in good condition, and only if the color is faded then just clean it with warm water and let it dry before you put a new deck paint.  If you are gonna just repaint and you some areas that needs prep work just sand the edges of the peeling areas, spot prime, and paint.  Make sure u feather out the edges so that there are no lifting edges.

Answer 3

If the old varnish is stable, you can paint over it with yacht varnish, but if you want to stain it as well, you'll need to remove all the old varnish first.

Answer 4

Paint, particularly since it already has paint on it.  

Power wash the deck first & let it dry completely.  This will enable you to see any flaky paint that you can scrape up for removal.  Any flakes that you remove: have some sandpaper handy & lightly feather the rough edges into the solid painted surface.

Remove/repair any bad deck boards, rails, uprights before painting.

Since the deck is old you'd be wise to check the framing under the deck to make sure everything is secure and not rotting.  

If you aren't a carpenter, don't know how or where to look for rot/bad joists, etc., hire someone that knows what they're doing.  

That step could save you money in the long  run by preventing a potential lawsuit if the deck falls out from under your guests.

After all that, then you can paint it :)