Skip to main content
Parthenon Restoration & Decorating
022 615 5816

Stripped back. Brought up.

Fence and deck finishing across Christchurch. Timber stripped back, cleaned, dried and refinished in stain or oil, so the grain comes up instead of the flake.

Book a Site VisitAll eight services
  • Owner operated
  • Christchurch
  • Part of the Parthenon family

It goes where you walk first.

Not all over. Down the middle, where the door opens onto it, in the two lines your feet take to the table. On bare timber that shows as grey; on a coated one the finish wears back to the boards.

Sun takes the colour out of the boards that face it. Feet take the finish off the ones you use. Water sits where they do not drain. Two years in, a deck that was one colour is three, and the eye reads it as the worst of them.

Where the timber is bare, the grey is not dirt and does not scrub off, because it is not on the timber, it is the timber. Coating over it is coating over something already letting go.

None of it means the deck is finished. The surface is, and the surface comes off first. Under a worn deck is almost always sound timber waiting for a machine.

A fence is the same material and a far easier job. No furniture to move, no room to lose, nobody working around you, and it changes the whole front of a house in a couple of days.

See the work

  • Why it is patchy

    Sun, feet and standing water

  • How deep the grey goes

    About a millimetre of loose fibre

  • What is underneath

    Sound timber, under a worn one

  • Why a fence is cheap

    Nothing to move, nobody displaced

Four things are working on it.

They do different damage and need different answers, and a finish chosen without knowing which is winning on your timber is chosen on colour alone.

Ultraviolet

What greys it

Sunlight breaks down the binder holding the surface fibres together and the top of the board turns to grey fluff. Pigment is the only thing that stops it, which is why a clear finish outdoors is a maintenance schedule.

The end grain

How water gets in

A board absorbs water through its cut ends far faster than through its face. Every joint, cut and screw hole is a way in, and where splitting and rot start long before the middle of a board is in trouble.

Foot traffic

Wears first

Grit underfoot is an abrasive, so the two or three lines you walk lose their finish years before the rest. Bare feet find it before eyes do.

Board movement

Cupping and twist

Timber takes up and gives off moisture, and a board wet on one face and dry on the other cups. Cupped boards hold water, which keeps that face wet, which cups it further. It compounds, so catch it early.

New horizontal timber fence panels in raw pale pine, drop sheets laid across the concrete beneath them
The same fence stained near black, the grain still reading through the finish

Raw pine, then charcoal.

Fence stain, Christchurch

The same fence before the stain and after. The colour has gone into the timber rather than sitting on top, so the grain and knots still read through the black.

View the full portfolio

Stain, oil, or paint.

Three genuinely different things people talk about as if they were shades of one decision. Which is right depends on the timber, the aspect, and how you want to be maintaining it in four years.

An oil soaks in and does not form a film. It cannot peel, and recoating is a wash and another coat rather than a strip. It wants doing more often and gives less protection than a pigmented finish.

A stain is the same idea with pigment in it. The pigment stops the sun reaching the timber, so the more solid the colour the longer the boards keep their strength. The usual answer on a fence and on a deck that gets real sun.

Paint on a deck is a film on a horizontal surface people walk on with grit under their shoes and water sitting on it. Films on decks fail, and when they peel the next person has to get all of it off first. On a fence it is a legitimate choice.

The questions people ask

  • Oil

    Soaks in, cannot peel, wants doing more often

  • Stain

    Pigment is the sunscreen, and lasts longer

  • Paint

    Fine on a fence, a problem underfoot

  • What you are picking

    A maintenance choice as much as a look

The coating is the last day.

Everything before it decides whether the finish is still there in three years.

First, whatever is on there has to come off. We strip a failed film rather than sanding through it, because sanding a peeling coating buries the edges. On a weathered bare deck we take the grey off with a machine, which is where most people first see the actual colour of their timber.

Then the wash and the treatment. We kill the mould and lichen rather than blasting them off, or the spores stay in the grain and come back through whatever goes on top. On grey timber we even the colour out with a brightener, because a stain magnifies whatever is under it.

Then the wait, the one step with nothing to show for it. Timber has to be dry all the way through, not dry on the surface after an hour of sun. Coating damp timber traps water underneath and the finish lifts within a season. We check with a meter, because the top two millimetres lie.

Then sanding, so the raised grain comes back down and the surface takes the finish evenly. Then the coats, with the boards rather than across them, cutting in the end grain properly because that is where water gets in.

How a job runs

  • Any old film

    Stripped off, not sanded through

  • Mould and lichen

    Killed at the root, then washed off

  • The step with nothing to show

    Dry all the way through, checked with a meter

  • Sanding

    Raised grain down, surface even

  • The coats

    Ends and cuts first, then the faces

Judged by a builder who saw the prep.

The stripping, the drying and the sanding decide whether a finish on outdoor timber is still there in three years, and no customer watches them. Daniel Fridd of Parthenon Construction has: he has had Bevan on his own sites.

“He's one of the best painters I've seen. Perfection. Takes proper care.”

Daniel Fridd, Parthenon Construction

Who you get

What people ask about timber.

Six answers, and the first one is the question that decides the price before anything else is discussed.

  • Does the old coating have to come off?

    If it is a film that is peeling, yes, all of it, and that is usually the biggest line in the quote. If it is an oil that has worn thin, no, it washes and recoats. Working out which takes a minute on site, before you have a number in your head.

  • How long does a deck take?

    Two visits rather than one. We strip and wash on the first, sand and coat on the second, and the timber dries all the way through in between. How many days is the weather rather than us, so the number comes off the site visit.

  • My deck is new. Does it need anything yet?

    Sooner than most people expect. New treated pine arrives wet and has to dry before it takes a finish, but left bare through a summer it greys and checks, and that has to be sanded out. There is a window, worth asking about while the deck is new.

  • Can you do just the worn parts?

    On an oil, yes, and it is the sensible way to keep a deck going. On anything that has formed a film, no, because the join between old and new will show and it is where the next failure starts. Worth hearing on the first visit rather than after the patch is done.

  • What about the neighbour side of the fence?

    We quote it either way, and it is worth deciding before the work rather than after. One side is normal. Both protects the timber from both faces, a real difference to how long the boards last, and it needs a word with next door.

  • Will it get on the paving?

    Not if it is masked and sheeted first. Stain on concrete is very hard to get off, so the paving is sheeted and the plants covered before anything is opened. Twenty minutes beats an afternoon on a mark that will not come out.

More questions

It is a five minute look.

What is on the timber now, whether it has to come off, and how much of the deck is worn rather than weathered. Those three are most of the price and none can be given over the phone. Outdoor timber runs in a handful of dry stretches a year, and they fill in the order people ask.

Or ring 022 615 5816. There is no obligation either way and nobody will chase you.