It depends on the sun. In areas where there is no sun, you can get 8 to 10 years or more with a solid color stain. In areas where the sun is always shining, you may need to recoat every 2 years. Also, for fences where the wood is actually in the ground or near it, you may need more maintenance there, especially if the wood is actually sitting on piles of snow or sitting in rainwater. I would just look at the wood periodically and see how much of the coating has weathered away to determine when it's time for another application. Of course, as a painter I notice that it is a rare person that actually stays on top of this sort of thing...most people wait until it is too late to apply another coat. Out of all the things we paint though, deck flooring and wood fences are about the hardest things to maintain. Thanks paintguy. Our fence around the HVAC is in shade most of the day - so possibly 8 years sounds great. Our other fence around the tankless water heater gets about 50% sun in the afternoon but its 2 posts each sits in open PVC sleeves in the ground & the ends touches rocks & pebbles within that sleeve. The post ends (~12") weren't painted - so go ahead & paint them? I'll definitely have to monitor it more often.

um... don't try the mineral spirits in place of the wrinkle cream! ;-) Let me see if I can remember this right. Take a few white rags and these solvents and rub a little area with a solvent-soaked rag. Do it in an inconspicuous area and have good ventilation and for goodness sakes, don't be burning candles or smoking! Do it in this order because the solvents cannot hurt anything higher in the list, but they can all affect the ones lower in the list: Rub on some denatured alcohol. Rag dirty with dissolved finish? You have a shellac finish. If not dissolved, move on. Rub on some lacquer thinner. Dissolved? If yes, you have lacquer finish. If no, move on. Rub on some mineral spirits. Dissolved? If yes, you have varnish. If no, you have polyurethane. Nothing dissolves cured polyurethane. Caroline, can you check this out with your DH, the chemist? I think I remembered it right, but I am not certain. I had shellac on my 1950 era floors. I did not know the dangers of Murphy's and used it to scrub the floors clean after pulling up the carpets. I let it dry a few days and then re-shellacked. I ended up with an orange-peel effect from the Murphy's. I had to wear a respirator to do this job because I am allergic to hydrocarbon fumes. That meant I did as little as I could get away with. If I had help, I would have done a wipe-down with the rest of the denatured alcohol in the can. But with just me there, I could not do that and not end up in the hospital with an asthma attack. The darn respirators never fit right and really work best when you are standing still and not wiping down floors. Plus, wearing a respirator meant my glasses set funny on my face and I could not really see what I was doing anyhow! Hire this stuff out, if you can!

I nonce bought a 'new' gallon of floor finish at Home Depot---turns out it was THREE years over the shelf life! Imagine my state of mind 12 hours after application when I went to apply the third coat and the stuff had not set at all---was still gooey. Did you clean off the excess stain before applying the poly? Your problem is the poly is not adhering---adding something more does not solve that problem. To solve the problem, you will most likely have to remove all(most) of the problem poly. Then sand with 150 grit (hand sanding) to just rough the surfaces. The clean the surfaces with a rag dampened with paint thinner. Then go to a real paint store and buy enough varnish---NON poly varnish---and apply several coats according to the manufacturers directions.

You should not need to poly your paint in order for it to be "protected". The proper prep job will determine if you have issues with it chipping, and water spots shouldn't occur on fully cured paint. If the prep didn't include TSP, sanding, priming with an alkyd primer, and two top coats, then you will have issues with the finish regardless of if you apply poly. In fact, applying poly could accelerate the issues. Wait a week for the paint to be fully cured, and it should withstand normal wear just fine if you used a quality paint.