PSA: my $500 deck stain job peeled after one winter because I skipped the prep

Last spring I paid a guy from Kijiji $500 to stain my back deck in Scarborough and it looked great until March when half of it peeled off like sunburn. Turns out he never pressure washed or sanded the old layers off, just slapped new stain over the cracked stuff. Anyone else get burned by a contractor who skipped the prep work and how do you spot that before paying?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencerm4628d ago

Respectfully, I gotta push back a little here. $500 for a deck stain job in Scarborough is basically the price of materials and maybe a six-pack, not a professional who's gonna do prep the right way. Prep work is the hardest part of the job and takes the most time. If someone's charging that low, they're either desperate or cutting corners. You want to spot a good contractor before paying? Ask them how long they spend on prep compared to staining, and if they say anything less than half the time, that's a red flag. Sounds like your guy just wanted quick cash and moved on to the next job. Next time get three quotes and pick the middle one, not the cheapest guy on Kijiji.

danielmason28d ago

I hear what you're saying about $500 being cheap, but I gotta push back a little on the idea that low price automatically means you should expect zero prep. I've had good luck finding guys on Kijiji who do solid work for reasonable rates, they just don't have the overhead of a big company. The real issue isn't the price, it's the guy flat out lying about what he was going to do. He could have told me "for $500 I'll slap on a coat but don't expect it to last" and I would have either paid more or done it myself. That's the part that bugs me the most, the dishonesty. A quick way to spot a lazy contractor is ask them to walk you through their exact steps before they touch the stain. If they mumble something vague or get defensive, that's your sign to walk away. Price matters less than whether they can actually tell you what's involved.

the_dylan14d ago

Yeah the "walk me through your steps" thing is gold. I started doing that after getting burned once and it's saved me a couple times since. If they can't tell you exactly what they're gonna do with the prep, they probably aren't planning to do much.