Deck Sealer Test Results – Part 2 Video

Deck Sealer Test Results - Part 2

Hi, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. Today is October 12, 2010 and I want to show you the results of the deck stain test that I started on April 30th of this year. I am wearing my favorite fall shirt to honor Mother Nature and her great light show she puts on for us in color with all the fall trees. My shirt doesn't match what Mother Nature offers.

Here are some of the color of the trees around the lake.

Let's go ahead and look at the dock and see what happened in our test. So look at this. Here's our first stain. This is Extreme Defy in Cedar Tone that looks just as good as the day it was applied, in my opinion. It still repels water and there is no mildew.

Immediately next to it is the Extreme Defy in Clear. In my opinion it failed the color test. The test boards are gray. They are just as gray as the untreated boards. It still repels water, which is good, but as far as the color it is pretty bad.

The next sample is Sherwin-Williams Deck Stain in clear. Same thing - it failed. It is very gray. About as gray as the untouched boards adjacent to it. But it still repels water.

Finally, this last section (sorry for the sun shadow) was cleaned at the start of the test, but no sealer was applied. This is the control to see what it would look like if you did nothing. As you can see the two sealers to the immediate left of the control board has the same coloration as the control boards.

So here it the bottom line. If you are going to put a deck sealer or stain on your deck, the test is conclusive. If you want it to look good for at least a year or longer, you are going to have to buy one with a color pigment in it. The color pigments act as a sun screen to help the wood from turning gray. And next spring, I am going to do an extensive test of name-brand sealers similar to this test.