In my opinion one of the best ways to preserve a treated pine fence (especially posts that are buried) is with sump oil. Or you can use linseed oil. The people on one side of me did not want me to soak their posts in sump oil in order for it to soak into the timber. In fact they called me a nutcase for sugesting it would extend the life of them. For the record the posts are (hardwood) Australian redgum. Pailings are 13mm teated pine and the rails are 50x75mm treated pine. On the other side, where i have native bushland I did soak the base of the post in sump oil for just over 48 hours before putting them in the ground. I then sprayed the fence with sump oil. The untreated (much more wind protected) fence ended up with 4 posts snapped off at groung level they were rotten. There were pailings blown off etc etc. The fence on the other side off my home (which copped the FULL force of the wind is still nice and straight and still in good order. I still can't even wobble ANY post one bit. Both fences were put up together 17 years ago when we built. Another thing sump oil does is prevent termite attack. (If the buried part is soaked for 24-48 hrs before cementing them in). don't think that "treated" pine, or any other 'treated' timber will stop termites the chemicals leach out over time. Now the people next door want me to pay 1/2 for a new fence. I took them over showed them the other fence that was oiled and asked can you see any problem here. The grass is growing, as are all the plants there is no issues there. It's not as if i just poored oil all around the posts so the impact on the enviroment is infenticimal if at all. very little (if any) oil leaches out if they are soaked) the timber holds the oil inside it. If you don't want sump oil on your pailings then liseed oil is the next best thing. It is moisture that rots the timber(creates the enviroment for rottting) oils will repel the water keeping the as dry as posible and thus extending the life. And preventing yet more trees from being chopped down to cut into posts, rails and pailings. In fairness I said to those people next door if you buy all the materials I will help you put it up. But I am not paying 1/2 the cost for a fencing contractor to build another fence simply because you refused to take WELL KNOWN advice and called me a nut case in the process. Why should I fork out $2,864.00 (that's my half) simply because you chose not to listen to good old fashioned and well known advice. When I asked if he was prepared to pay half for the damage to my new garden bed, plants, shrubs and some other things I had stored where the fence fell on it all and brokes new shrubs etc he said "oh that's not my fault" "Can't you claim it on your insurance?" When asked why he isn't claiming his fence repairs on his insurance he said "Oh I don't have insurance". I said what happens if your house burns down how can you afford to pay the mortgage as well as the cost of living elsewhere. "Oh it won't burn down" was the answer I got. GO FIGURE.

The thing about painted railings is that they are a pain to maintain. Our 45 year old deck started out with them ( with a stained deck floor) and for 25 years we had to scrape, sand and repaint the railings. This time around, we are using oil based semi transparent stain on the railings and floor. You just have to apply new stain to freshen up. No need to remove the old stain, unless you want to change colors, as far as I know.

I have tried this product and it has really been a pain! It works okay on the rails and spindles but on the deck floor it makes a mess. We have tried it 3 times thinking it was the way we applied it. Wrong. It is clearly the product. Now we are in the process of sanding and cleaning it off once again. We used a mixture of 3/4 golden honey and 1/4 clove brown. Each time you use it it gets darker. A dark dull color. Not attractive at all. It also scratches horribly and makes bad foot/paw prints if you walk on it with dirt on your feet. The prints will not rinse off with water. Doesn't make since but nonetheless it happens. You pretty much have to use a cleaning product of some type. And, it scratches just like funiture and the darker the stain the worse the scratch. Dog toenails scratch it as does moving anything across it. To remove the scratches you have to use steel wool and/or a product that works to cover up furniture scratches. The company denies a lot of these type of complaints but did say a few calls like this have come in. Not sure why it would only cause these problems some of the time but who knows. Just beware. If you really want to use this product I would do a test area. Also, BEWARE do not use it on a shaded deck as it will not cure for weeks, if at all. BTW, the company seems nice enough but I question the product.

The wood on this deck is weathered and need protection. The wood itself has a reddish hue. I am not sure what semitransparent wood stain shade to use, while keeping the look classy. Is there an app I can use to do different mock-ups of colors?