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Here’s a property that we maintain every couple years. This is a one story home in Aptos near the golf course. They have 900 s/f of redwood boards in back with a pretty extensive wood arbor above the hot tub. The deck gets a lot of sun in the summer(when it’s sunny in Aptos) and not so much sun in the winter. The lower portion can get slick as snot, especially after months of wet leaf and debris sitting there taking hold. Lots of big trees dropping big wet leaves all over. Some photos of things that get cleaned along the way sometimes .

Shingle Restoration Santa Cruz

Deck Staining & Maintenance

San Lorenzo Valley, Santa Cruz, Aptos, Scotts Valley

This is common. Sometimes I am able to find out exactly why something like this has happened, and sometimes I am not. The remedies are numerous and it usually doesn’t involve doing too much about it immediately. The reason something like this happens are also numerous and usually involve some combination of improper application and/or over application of a transparent stain. Transparent stains can easily be built up over time. Building up the coats on a single application can easily encourage the stain to peel. A transparent stain that peels doesn’t make any homeowner happy. It’s just awful, and in many cases very orange. Double Awful. If this is your deck, let’s talk. Deck staining and maintenance in Santa Cruz County has been a specialty of ours since 2001.

This one got underway mid April. These beauties can be rare in Santa Cruz County. The only information Happy Homeowner should know is that it will always prove to be a smart decision to take the wood maintenance route, especially if the wood siding on the house is built with good old fashioned wood from the good old days. The alternatives can range from not doing anything about it(lame) to an extra costly, complete replacement job(stupid) to I would suppose a paint or solid stain job.(nightmare).

It just needs to be loved up. And it needs to be loved up right. In the case of this beautiful wood sided house on the upper westside of Santa Cruz CA, a proper cold water wash followed by a high end, water based material.

References furnished upon Request.

  • Exterior Wood Staining
  • Wood Siding Maintenance, Shingle Maintenance
  • Santa Cruz, Aptos, Scotts Valley

Protect your wood deck from the elements. Rain and Sun. Santa Cruz County Deck Maintenance, staining and sealing, give us a call or shoot us an email today.

cleaningsantacruz at gmail dot com

831-two four six-twenty ten

Deck staining and maintenance has become this company’s bread and butter. In 2022 we completed 31 such deck projects. As usual, they ranged in size and shape. Some had rails, some didn’t. Some were very high up in the air and some weren’t. Hardwoods and Softwoods. If you have a deck you are interested in protecting and you live in Santa Cruz County, please shoot us an email. Include some pictures. 2023 sure got off to a wet start. Make sure you stay on top of the maintenance of your wood deck.

cleaningsantacruz at gmail dot com

If the spouts are clogged, the gutters are likely filled. If you can safely unclog and clean yourself then you should do it. If you can’t, we can help.

Santa Cruz, Aptos, Scotts Valley

831/246/2010

Up near the university. One of the final deck projects of the year. Some different looks from different parts of the day. Cedar boards. Properly spaced. Fastened from below. 20 years old

Santa Cruz, Aptos, Scotts Valley

The final wood wash and stain project for 2022 was on the upper west side of Santa Cruz just off Escalona. Pretty typical job. Large redwood deck in the backyard that wrapped around to a side area, and an much smaller Ipe deck off a 2nd story master bedroom. The ground level redwood deck was about five years new and had been stained immediately by the deck builder after it was finished being built. The Ipe deck was ten years old and never cared for.

Both decks were pretty greyed out from heavy sun exposure and cleaned perfectly well with just cold water. There was side-to-side cupping on the Ipe boards, but I would say that is pretty common. Nothing you can do about that and certainly nothing you are going to do to remove the cupping outside of maybe flipping the boards. We applied a redwood tone transparent stain on the the redwood deck and a much deeper tone was used on the Ipe.

For ALL your outdoor wood maintenance needs, Decks, Arbors, Fences, Shingles and Siding

Santa Cruz, Felton, Scotts Valley, Aptos, Capitola

Somewhere in Soquel

Love the spacing on this redwood deck in Santa Cruz County, Soquel Hills off Old San Jose Soquel Road. Proper spacing will always lend itself to proper cleaning. Proper deck cleaning will allow for super nice deck staining results.

As with any properly applied, high-end transparent or semi-transparent stain, the tone you see depends on where you are in relation to the direction of the board, AND where the sun is in relation to your direction. It is why the people, in general, will forever want their exterior wood maintained with the beauty of a “see through” material.

This deck was built by the owner in 2019 and they immediately stained the boards with an oil based product of some sort. The deck was pretty filthy yet the boards were in fine shape. Loads and loads of afternoon sun. Heavy sun is enough reason to have your decks restored and maintained at least every few years.

Santa Cruz Soquel Aptos Corralitos Scotts Valley Capitola Live Oak

Privacy

West Side Santa Cruz

Decks, Shingles, Arbors

   Not sure why I decided to put these two photos together in the same post.  Each photo represents a completely different section of this glorious deck, facing a different direction altogether.  And of course it’s a different time of day after a much stormier kind of night.  

One common bond is that both pictures represent a finished look after a fresh coat of high end water based transparent stain.  This deck is 10 months new.  Good times.

Santa Cruz County Deck Staining & Maintenance

Wood Siding, Shingles, Arbors, Privacy Areas

2022 Inquiries best to email and include some photos

cleaningsantacruz at gmail dot com

A dry winter, a very busy spring, and the No-Eyed Dog Days of Summer began early this year. Wouldn’t be the same without Quinn.

Santa Cruz County Deck Maintenance. Washing & Custom Staining. Scotts Valley, Aptos, Santa Cruz

cleaningsantacruz@gmail

May 28, 2021 | Permalink

Pasatiempo. Afternoon time. Redwood privacy wall. 8 months new and it probably could have gone another 6 months before having it stained. It was aged, just not aged enough for my taste, My suggestion moving forward was to wait 3-4 years before applying another coat.

Serving entire San Lorenzo Valley, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz County

Deck Staining-Shingle Maintenance-Outdoor Wood Protection

See through Green? Who makes that!! Nobody has it except this client in Truckee California. This blended transparent tone went directly over redwood siding

Santa Cruz deck maintenance, Aptos, Freedom, Watsonville, West Side Santa Cruz shingle maintenance. Shingles and siding. Staining redwood decks. Sealing decks. Scotts Valley, Summit area, Boulder Creek. Pressure washing concrete, bricks, houses, fences, patios.

Professional washing and staining outdoor wood decks. Yearly maintenance plans available. Deck staining and sealing serving all Santa Cruz Counties.

Heart Broken

So much time and effort spent at 355 Boulder Brook in Boulder Creek California over the past 15 years. A special place and a special client. The special client is going to be OK. The special place is burned to the ground and totally destroyed. Breaks my heart.

For this particular deck in Ben Lomond area I finished half of it and then came back like a week later to finish the second half. Long story. Nonetheless, I quickly rewashed the side that I hadn’t put stain on and because of that I was able to get a picture that might just be worth those thousand words.

The boards on the right side of the picture are the deck boards that just got washed again and are in the process of drying. These are new boards. Actually they are about 14 months new. Most people with new decks, when referencing a tone, say that they like how the deck looks when the boards are wet. And I understand what they mean by that. And what they really mean by that is that they like how clean, new, and wet boards look. And that’s because dirty, new, wet boards are too slick to appreciate the tone.

This is a blend of sorts. A little red, some cedar, some butternut tone. The mistake is usually to use too light of a tone. And it’s not that the darker the tone, the better. There is a way to make a tone appear dark when it needs to appear dark, yet appear light when it should seem light.

The boards on the left side of this picture are finished. Washed, Stained, dried, finished. It’s about as natural as one would ever want, yet this is NOT the result of using a quote unquote natural tone.

Deck Maintenance, staining and sealing, Santa Cruz, Aptos, Soquel, Scotts Valley, San Lorenzo Valley, and beyond.

Email today. Now giving bids for 2021 projects.

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