I have a cedar deck that was last stained with Flood CWF a few years ago. The finish is in very bad shape and about 75% worn off. What would be the best product to use to strip this off? Also, the deck is right next to brick...will strippers discolor the brick?

I am a bit frustrated as the deck has never looked good for more than about 9 months after staining. The winters here in Chicago are pretty hard but there must be something better to stain it with?

CWF is a film forming water base stain. It can be prone to peeling since it does not penetrate into the wood 100%. I would suggest a penetrating stain next time. The theory is that the better is penetrates the less chance of peeling. All of these stains will work better:

Penetrating Deck Stains

I would suggest the HD80 Stripper. It works well on removing the Flood CWF. The stripper will not harm brick.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Since I have no experience stripping decks, the HD-80 makes me a little nervous after reading about it. I gather Flood stain must be hard to strip...are there any other strippers that would do the job that might be better suited to someone with no experience? If it is strong enough, the PowerSolve hose-connect products seem easy to use.

The Hose-Connects are very good products but the CWF is very hard to remove. It is hard to say how effective they will be. The HD80 will be the most effective.