Hey guys! Long time no see. I haven’t blogged in almost a year now, and when I checked in recently after a long time, I was surprised to see, in my hiatus, how many of you guys had checked out my post on our experience with Behr Deck Over and how many questions there were about what we ended up doing with our deck.
I have an edit on the end of that original post with an update, but even with that, my inbox was kind of flooded with questions about what the end result was with that deck. So I though I’d just go ahead and do a post about it.
You should know up front that we’ve moved from that house, so I don’t have any recent pictures. And I’d noped out of blogging when we finally fixed the deck, so I didn’t take any pictures of that process either. Luckily, it was pretty simple- really because of how much the DeckOver had ruined the finish of that deck.
In case you hadn’t read the first post, the DeckOver on our back deck looked great for a short while, then it started peeling up in sheets (see pic above). Judging from the many comments on that post, that’s not an unusual occurrence, unfortunately. We honestly weren’t sure what to do with it and just kind of covered it up with large area rugs for most of the time we lived in that house.
When we decided to sell, however, we just couldn’t leave the new homeowners with that mess. It didn’t feel right. We decided we needed to either remove the finish and re-stain the deck, or just remove the deck and build a new one. We really didn’t have the budget to build a new deck though, so we decided to remove the DeckOver and re-stain.
The only good part about the peeling DeckOver was, it ended up being relatively easy to remove. Much of it came up just with our fingers- we could literally just pick it up and peel it off. What we couldn’t peel off with our hands, we used a scraping tool and would pry an edge off, then peel it off. We ended up being able to peel off the DeckOver from the entire deck that way. It took about 3 days total. It was easy but super tedious and OMG reminded me that I am not so young anymore. Every muscle hurt at the end of the day.
Important edit: My husband reminded me that we weren’t able to get every last bit of the DeckOver off the deck, and he was right! I forgot that there were sections on the steps that were really, really difficult to get off. There was also a small section on the floor of deck itself that just would not peel off. On those parts, we sanded and sanded and sanded some more, then stained on top. Also, I forgot to address the rails. They were not in nearly as bad a shape as the floor- I would say they were in fair shape. For them, we peeled off the bad sections and had exterior paint color matched and then painted.
It is worth noting that, all of the wood underneath what was left of the DeckOver was damp- even though it had been several days since it had rained. We are very, very lucky that the wood was not rotted. We waited a few more days until the wood was dry, then we stained the deck with deck stain.
Sorry for the total lack of pictures of the finished product after we fixed it. You can just kinda see it here- this is from our listing pictures. I just did not have it in me to take step by step pictures while I was doing this and getting ready to move. And honestly, at that point, I didn’t think I’d be blogging again so…pretty anticlimactic, huh?
Here’s a pretty picture of the side of the house, though!
One final update- the DeckOver on the covered front porch still looked pretty good!
And the concrete stairs were still in perfect condition! Those streaks you see on the stairs, below, is the ever-present pollen beast showing itself, as it is known to do in spring in Georgia.
So there’s my final final update on the DeckOver. I hope this answers some of your questions!
I was just getting started with Deckover when I saw your blog. My wood is in rough shape – cracked and splintering but still sturdy and it’s a high traffic uncovered area – so I thought Deckover was the product to use. I just moved in a few months ago and don’t have the budget for a new deck – should I quit the Deckover before I get too far? Is there another product that is good for preventing/blocking splinters? I’m in Maryland so so humidity is a thing and have fill southern exposure (m making application of Deckover tricky as you aren’t supposed to apply in direct sun). Thank you so much for your blog. I truly appreciate learning from your experience.
Hi Rebecca, thank you for stopping by! Honestly, with what happened with our deck and the many comments I’ve had on my post, I just couldn’t recommend the DeckOver. There are other resurface products out there that may work better (I think Cabot makes one called DeckCorrect that seems to be well reviewed) but I haven’t personally tried them so I can’t say for sure how they work.
If I had it to do over, I probably would have tried covering the deck with a deck tile like Ikea sells- they lock together and just sit on top of the deck. They aren’t super cheap, (but then neither is the DeckOver!) but they are an easy weekend DIY and they are very well reviewed. They are also much cheaper than building a new deck. Here’s a link to the ones Ikea sells if you’re interested, but I think you can find them many places if you just search for “deck tiles”. I hope this helps! https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/runnen-decking-outdoor-gray-70238112/
The deck over was a voluntary recall and the company has done nothing about the damage it might have caused to their customers property. I used it 3 times and could never recommend this product. Luckily you can get it off if you have the time. The cracks in the deck may be more of a challenge to correct before staining. I hope to figure how to treat the cracks soon.
Hello, I just came across your blog today as I was researching ways to remove the horrible deck over. Why do they sell this stuff???! We have hated it since about a month in and we are about a year in at this point just staring at the ugly thing. We’ve tried multiple things to remove it and it just doesn’t come off evenly and leaves the wood looking worse than before. We decided to replace the deck boards this summer (the railing isn’t wood thank goodness). I’m struggling with the outside structure of the deck itself. Tearing out the whole deck is way to expensive so I’m trying to remove it from the outside and it’s such a headache. Currently what is working is a mix between grinders and sanders but it’s so time consuming and using a lot of sandpaper too!
We made the mistake of trying Deck Over on our back decks…costly and a pain to apply…did all the prep first….always looked dirty and peeled after the first winter ! We finally removed all of it….cleaned, sanded, and sealed with a clear protectant!!! Never again !!!