The spring opening — every year, every material
The first warm weekend in April or May, before you put the furniture back out, do the spring opening. It takes two to three hours and catches every problem worth catching while it’s still cheap.
- Sweep, then wash.Sweep the surface clear of winter debris. Wash with a stiff-bristle brush, a bucket of water, and a deck cleaner suited to your material (oxygen bleach for wood, soap-and-water for composite/PVC). Pressure washers under 1,500 psi are fine for wood; for composite, only at a wide-fan tip from 18″ away.
- Inspect the deck-to-house ledger. Walk along the ledger board (the board bolted to the house). Look for rust on the lag bolts, swelling of the wood, or any sign of water entry behind the flashing. The ledger fails first, usually around year eight to twelve, and the failure mode is structural.
- Probe with a screwdriver.Every joist hanger, every post-to-beam connection, every board near a wet spot — push a screwdriver in firmly. If it sinks in more than 1/8″ with modest pressure, you have rot. Mark the spot with chalk; come back with a contractor or a replacement board.
- Tighten all the fasteners you can reach. Stair handrail bolts loosen every winter. Railing post bolts loosen every two to three winters. A 30-minute pass with the right wrench prevents wobble and prolongs the connection.
- Check the rim joist and stair stringers. The stair stringers sit closest to the ground and rot first. The rim joist holds the outer edge of the deck and takes the most load. Both deserve a careful look.
Five steps. Two hours. Done before the first barbecue. The deck maintenance schedule PDF breaks this into a year-by-year checklist by material so you can actually track what you’ve done and what’s coming due.
Pressure-treated — the every-two-years rhythm
Pressure-treated decks are alive in a way the others aren’t. They need attention.
Year 1
Wait for the wood to dry out. PT lumber is sold wet (the treatment chemistry is water-borne), and applying stain to wet wood produces a peeling finish. The accepted test: sprinkle water on the board. If it beads up, the wood is still too wet. If it absorbs in under 30 seconds, you’re ready to stain. For most GTA decks built spring-to-summer, this is roughly 60–90 days after install. Stain the deck in late summer or early fall of year 1.
Years 2 and 3
Annual spring opening. If the stain still looks consistent and water still beads on the surface, leave it. If you can see grey wash-out on the top of the boards or any face is splotchy, re-stain that fall.
Years 4–10
Re-stain every two years on average. Some PT decks can stretch to three; full-sun southwest exposures may need yearly attention. Replace individual boards as needed — a single PT board costs $8–$15 and an experienced homeowner can swap it in twenty minutes.
Cedar — softer wood, gentler product
Cedar is half-step in maintenance terms. It needs less aggressive treatment than PT but more frequent.
Year 1
Cedar can be stained immediately on installation if dry-shipped, or let to weather for one season before staining if you prefer the silver patina. The decision here is aesthetic and binding — once you’ve let cedar weather for a full year, getting back to a stained finish requires sanding.
Years 2–10
If staining: every 18–24 months. Cedar holds stain less aggressively than PT because the wood is less porous. Use a semi-transparent oil-based stain (Sansin, Sikkens, Cabot) — solid stains trap moisture in the wood and accelerate cupping.
If weathering: nothing. Cedar weathers beautifully if it’s free to dry on both faces. The mistake is letting silvered cedar sit on rugs or under planter pots that hold moisture — those spots will rot first.
Composite and PVC — the low-touch path
Composite and PVC decks need cleaning, not finishing. The work is thirty minutes a year if you stay on top of it.
Year 1
The first season, watch for end-of-board buckling or visible gaps opening up. If you see either, the install spacing was wrong — report it to the contractor while the workmanship warranty is active. After year two, manufacturers will typically refuse warranty claims on spacing.
Years 2–10
Wash twice a year — once on opening, once in the fall before leaves accumulate. Use the manufacturer’s recommended cleaner (Trex, AZEK, TimberTech all sell their own; most are similar soap-based formulations). Avoid muriatic acid, bleach, or any cleaner with chlorides — these will void the warranty and can damage the cap.
Two specific maintenance items composite owners get wrong:
- Sticky tannin staining from oak leaves left on the deck for weeks. Solve it by clearing leaves promptly and cleaning with a tannin-specific cleaner if a stain develops. Pressure washing makes this worse if done at too high a PSI.
- Mildew in the board grooves on shaded north-facing decks. Composite is mildew-resistant on the surface but not in the texture grooves. A soft-bristle brush and the manufacturer cleaner is enough; repeated scrubbing with a wire brush damages the cap.
Year 5 — the structural check-up
Every five years, regardless of material, do a more thorough inspection. Plan a half-day for this; you’re looking at the bones of the deck, not the surface.
- All joist hangers.Lay on your back under the deck (or pull up an inspection board if it’s ground-level). Look at every joist hanger. Rust spots are normal; bent hangers, missing nails, or pulled-out nails are not.
- Beam-to-post connections. The post saddle (the metal bracket between the post and the beam) is a known failure point in GTA decks. Wood-on-wood post connections without a saddle are out of spec under the current OBC.
- Footings.If you can see the top of the sonotube, look for cracking, heaving, or settlement. Heaving is the GTA-specific problem — footings that weren’t deep enough to clear the frost line ride up over the years.
- Stair stringers.Probe with a screwdriver where the stringers meet the ground. Replace anything that gives more than 1/8″.
- Ledger flashing. The aluminum or copper drip-cap above the ledger should still be intact. Reseal the caulk line where the flashing meets the house siding.
Year 10 — refinish, repair, or replace
Year ten is the honest reckoning. By now you know what the deck actually is.
Pressure-treated at year 10
Most PT decks have a structural life of 18–25 years if the footings and ledger are right. At year 10, expect to: replace 5–15% of the deck boards (the most-trafficked or south-facing ones), sand and re-stain the rest, and possibly replace one stair tread. Total cost typically $1,500–$3,500. Adding another 8–12 years to the deck.
Cedar at year 10
Cedar at year 10 is usually at the decision point. Boards have cupped, some have cracked at the fasteners, and a third are still fine. Two paths: replace just the cupped boards and re-stain the deck ($2,000–$4,000), accepting a patchwork look; or replace all the cedar boards on top of the existing frame ($6,000–$9,500). The frame itself usually has another 10+ years of life.
Composite at year 10
A well-installed composite deck at year 10 still looks roughly like it did at year three. The surface might show some weathering and minor scratches; the structure should be unchanged. Expected maintenance at this point is cosmetic cleaning, possibly replacing a stair tread that’s seen unusual wear. Total cost typically $200–$800.
PVC at year 10
PVC decks tend to be the boards that look least changed at year ten. The cap is more UV-stable than composite and the board doesn’t absorb moisture, so colour shift is minimal. The weak point for PVC is the fastener system — hidden fasteners that hold the boards down can loosen with thermal cycling. Walk the deck barefoot and listen for clicks; reset any loose boards.
Failure signs that mean call a contractor today
Most deck issues are slow. A few are not.
- The ledger pulls away from the house.A gap of 1/4″ or more between the ledger and the siding means the fasteners have failed or the wall framing has rotted. This is the single most common cause of catastrophic deck collapse. Stop using the deck until it’s assessed.
- The deck bounces when you walk on it, more than it used to.Either a joist has failed or the beam-to-post connection has loosened. Find which one before the deck’s loaded with people again.
- A post visibly leans. Could be settlement (slow fix), could be footing failure (immediate fix). Either way, a contractor visit.
- The railing is loose enough to feel it. The guard is the safety feature that prevents people from falling off the deck. A wobbly railing at six feet of elevation is replaced today, not tomorrow.
The decade view
A well-built deck on proper footings, with the right material choice for the owner’s maintenance tolerance, lasts 20–30 years in the GTA. The single biggest determinant isn’t the material — it’s the attention paid in years one through five, when small problems are still small. Decks that get the spring opening and the year-five structural check almost always make it to year twenty. Decks that don’t, almost never do.
If you’ve worked through this chapter and decided the deck you have isn’t worth saving, the demolition tool will price the teardown and the calculator will price the replacement. Otherwise, back to the guide hub to pick another chapter.