Hello,

We have had our deck now for 8 years. We have probably stained it 4 times we have absoultey no luck with stains.
we have tried penofin(clear coat no color),cabot,olympic in a solid stain brownish color all seem to chip off of the surface quickly.

Our deck is in direct sun however, we have umbrellas up to shade most areas. We again need to stain this deck. It is so frustrating because we have a large 20X20 with 2 8X10's on each side and we paid a lot of money for it and by mid summer it looks horrible.
We do entertain often in the summer and have 2 dogs,and are in ny so we have cold windy winters as nwe are by a farm field.

Can you suggest a stain? should we use an epoxy or something with grit in it or an addiditive that we could add to a stain?
We are at a loss.
also, do you have a sugestion to remove the layers of stain that havent chipped.
Any information you could provide would be great

Unfortunately once you use a solid stain it is virtually impossible to remove. Strippers will not remove it completely. Your best bet would be to sand the brown solid stain off if you want to use a natural tinted stain again. You would need to do this before using any of the products we sell. They cannot be applied over the brown solid stain.

The reason it is chipping is that you used products that laid on top of the surface instead of penetrating into the wood. The better it penetrates the less chance of peeling and chipping. If you completely remove all your previous coatings then I would suggest any of the "penetrating" stains on this list:

Deck Stains and Sealers - Professional Grade

I tried to remove a solid stain last season. It did come off eventutally but I needed to strip the deck about 6 times followed by sanding. Even after that it only come off about 90%.