Water Pooling on the Deck Doesn’t Evaporate: A Weatherproofer Side Effect

Well, one thing’s for sure: the Behr Premium Deck Sealer is working.  Water beads up on contact.  But now we’re faced with a new problem: Every time it rains, it takes several hours for pooled rain water to evaporate off the deck.  The back of our house doesn’t see sunlight until about 11:30am in the Summer, and since the deck surface is now impervious to the water, it just sits on top… for hours… all wet. 

I’ve inspected the decking boards and most of them are not warped in a way that would cause water to pool (the term for the type of warp that would cause pooling is a “cup” in the wood, where the edges of the wood curl upward leaving a pool of water in the middle–Thanks TCBD!).   Almost all of the decking boards are flat or cupped downwards, a testament to good installation technique.   The ones that are flat still have imperfections in them that lead to some water sitting on top of the deck, and of course a certain amount of water will sit on even the most perfectly shaped boards.

So we’ve been experimenting with several techniques for taking care of the water.  I tried sweeping it off with two different types of brooms.  Both were only marginally effective, mostly spreading the water out more than getting rid of it.  I considered a squeegee, but figured the imperfections in the surface would prevent the squeegee from getting at most of the water.  For our recent fourth of July party, I used beach towels.  These worked great; in fact, the deck was nearly dry after dragging just one towel across the surface.  But towels get soaked quickly and must be constantly rung out - so that solution is more of a pain than a solution.

Finally, I got a bright idea (only 3 ideas in!)  I pulled out our kitchen floor mop.  It’s a standard kitchen mop with a handle that allows you to squeeze excess water out of it.  The kitchen mop turned out most effective for the job.  A few passes and the excess water either dropped between the boards, or was easily rung out over the side.   Why a mop didn’t occur to me earlier, I’m not sure.  It’s what you’d use to take care of a water problem inside.  I guess I figured the deck would be too rough on it.

Anyhow, unless we find something better, our kitchen mop now doubles as our deck mop.  If you’re facing this problem, a simple kitchen mop just might solve it for you.