What is a good year-round maintenance schedule for exterior wood in North County?

Why a calendar matters here

North County has two seasons that matter for wood: a wet season from roughly November through March, and a long dry season with a damp marine layer in late spring and early summer and hard sun through the fall. Wood needs different things at different points in that cycle, and most finish failures happen because a task got done at the wrong time, usually finishing wood that was not dry or waiting until a finish had already failed.

This is the rhythm we follow on our own projects and suggest to homeowners. Adjust it to your exposure. A shaded north-side deck in Vista and a west-facing deck on the Carlsbad bluffs are not on the same schedule.

Late winter to early spring: inspect and repair

When the rains taper off, before anything gets cleaned, walk every piece of exterior wood with a screwdriver and a flashlight.

• Probe post bases, beam and joist ends, ledgers, stair stringers and fence posts at grade. Soft wood gets scheduled for repair now, while the weather is mild.
• Look under the deck. Check hangers and bolts for rust, flashing at the house for gaps, and the ground for standing water.
• Clear the gaps between deck boards with a putty knife, and sweep or blow leaves out of corners and off pergola beams.
• Pull soil and mulch back from fence boards and posts.
• Note where finishes have dulled or grayed. This is your list for spring.

Spring: clean, brighten, recoat

The window is a stretch of dry days after the marine layer has lifted enough to dry the wood, typically late April through June depending on the year and the distance from the water. This is when most of the refinishing work happens.

• Decks and stairs: oxygen bleach clean, oxalic brighten, two or three days of drying, then a thin coat of penetrating oil where the old finish has dulled. Many decks need this every year or two.
• Pergolas: same process, with attention to rafter tops. Protect everything below.
• Fences: clean and recoat the sunny side when it has faded; the shaded side often skips a year.
• Front door: wash, scuff and apply a maintenance coat of spar varnish before the gloss goes dull. West-facing doors every year; protected doors every two or three.
• Teak furniture: wash, treat any mildew spots, and reseal if you keep it sealed. Bare teak just gets the wash.

Summer: rinse and watch

Summer is the hard season for finishes but not a time for big projects; the wood is dry and the finish is doing its job. Rinse salt film and dust off decks, railings and furniture with a hose every few weeks, especially near the water. Keep sprinklers from hitting wood; repeated wetting on one spot is the fastest way to a failed finish. Take cushions off teak when not in use so slats dry. Notice which surfaces are getting hottest and fading fastest; those are the candidates for a slightly darker, more pigmented finish or more shade next spring.

Late summer is a good time for a maintenance coat on sun-blasted rafter tops or stair treads that have gone dull early, as long as the wood is clean.

Fall: prepare for rain

Before the first real storm, get organic debris off the wood. Leaves on a deck or in a pergola joint hold water for weeks and stain and rot the wood under them. Clean gutters and downspouts that discharge near decks, fences or posts. Check that water drains away from post bases and that the ground under a deck is not a low spot. If a repair was deferred in spring, fall is the last comfortable window before the wet season.

Fall is also when to clean and cover teak if it will not be used over the winter, with a breathable cover, not plastic.

Keep a simple log

A note on your phone with the year each surface was last finished, and the product used, saves real money. It tells you what you can put on top of what, it keeps you from stripping a deck that only needs a recoat, and it shows you which surfaces are on a one-year cycle and which are on three. After two or three seasons the calendar writes itself.

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