Treating The Deck With Thompson's WaterSeal Water Proofer Plus

Big thunderstorms right now. Big thunderstorms. I couldn’t think of a better time to take pictures of water beading up on the freshly sealed porch. Leave it to me…the crazy guy who gets all wet just for a few photos. Hey man, if you want the good stuff, sometimes you gotta get wet.

I started this project a few days ago. We had one ugly gray, weathered out porch. The previous owners of the house stained it two different colors. My plan was to simply pressure wash off some of the mildew and then stain over everything with a solid stain. I actually bought three gallons of Behr Redwood color stain from Home Depot.

Things changed after I got the pressure washer up on the porch. I started cleaning and what do you know…all that ugly just started falling off. After a few hours, I was left with this beautiful, brand new looking deck. Hmmm…yep, you got it. Back to Home Depot with the stain. I wasn’t going to cover up that nice looking wood grain. No way. I have sealed decks with Thompson’s WaterSeal Plus before and I really love the way it looks. I picked up a nice five gallon can of Thompson’s Water Sealer for less than I spent on the stain. Not a bad deal.

There are a few perks to using clear water proofer. First, it’s easy to get off your hands. Just wash them. Second, if you get some on the grass or side of the house, no big deal. At least you didn’t just paint something redwood color. Third, I think it just looks the best out of everything. You can’t beat that wood grain. Also, it really works great to repel water and block the UV rays. You have to get the “Plus” stuff with the UV ray blocker. I used the regular Thompson’s vs. this stuff and it doesn’t even compare.

I think it took about four hours to do the whole deck. I’m not exactly done, but I don’t have much left. To do the railings, I used a three inch hand brush and to do the floor, I used a six inch brush attached to something like a broomstick. I used to use a sprayer, but I didn’t feel like making that much of a mess this time around.