Cedar deck - running out of time

[Tom7227]

My nephew is moving to Duluth on Sunday. The cedar deck at his current home is about 4 years old and was in terrible shape. We have sanded it down but the posts are still stained and frankly not in that bad of shape. It looks like weather is going to prevent him from doing anything because of the temp and rain. What would you recommend - putting something on it or leave it bare? He is going to sell the home and I thought it made sense to let the buyers decide what color they wanted it. I don't know what will happen to the bare cedar over the winter.

Thanks for your time.

Tom

[Mid-Lake Rock]

In college I worked for a painting company and we fixed up a lot of weather damaged decks. We generally wanted the deck to be dry for three days prior to applying stain. I've seen decks where stain was applied too soon after moisture and there was bubbling and peeling.

I would just wait it out until next spring, clean the deck and stain. I'm a fan of mixing one part bleach to three parts water in a gravity sprayer. Let that soak and use a scrub brush to get the mold off the deck.

[pikechaser]

A good pressure washing would probly make it look 100% better. Then the new homeowner could do what they want with it.

[crothmeier]

Use a brightener/cleaner product and it will make it look alot better and leave it over winter. it will gray out some over winter, but nothing a transparent deck stain wouldnt be able to sharpen up!

Penofin makes a two step process, a cleaner, and then a brightener that works excellent.

ps i dont work for penofin, just speaking from experience.