Blasting vs sanding a deck: where each one wins

We are not going to pretend blasting is always the answer. On a small, simple, flat deck with no railing, a rented sander and a weekend is genuinely cheaper.

Where sanding works

• Small decks, simple rectangles, boards in good condition.
• No railings, or simple square balusters.
• You have the weekend and do not mind the dust.

Where sanding falls down

• Between the boards. A sander cannot get into the gaps, so old finish stays there and shows as dark lines through your new stain.
• Railings and balusters. This is where the labour explodes. Every spindle by hand.
• Against the house and around posts. Corners a disc will never reach.
• Cupped or rough boards. A sander rides the high points and skips the hollows.

What blasting does differently

Media follows the surface instead of riding it. It reaches the gaps, the balusters, the corners and the underside of the nosing at the same rate as the open field, so the take-off is even and the stain lands uniform.

The reason a refinished deck goes patchy in a season is almost always the parts the sander never touched.

It matters most on the older decks around Crescent Heights and Riverside, where there are usually several coats of history to get through and the boards are too thin to lose much to a sander.