Cuprinol Urban slate Matt Slip resistant Decking Wood stain, 2.5L

Painted decking last year. Initially had problems with significant colour variation between tins. Had to complain and get replacements, then re-paint!

It's now been on less than 12 months and already wearing off (see pics) despite Very light use of the deck area.

I did the whole deck with 3 coats. Some of it even had 4 due to the colour match issue.

Really disappointed. Especially as it's certainly not cheap! Avoid!

Bought this last year for my new laid decking, It looked great when applied was really happy with the job. Then the snow came and when it melted away ,so did most of the decking stain. Will now need to remove whats left and try something else.

Bought this for my decking. Gave it 3 coats, all on different days. Then gave it a coat of clear decking oil as extra protection. Two days later it rained and decking now looks all patchy with previous decking colour showing through. Waste of my time and money!

Having spent hours last summer preparing and painting our decking, the initial result looked really good.
Now having gone through winter, it looks a mess. The paint has peeled in many places.
Not sure what to do now!!!!!
Money spent with a product that did not do what's written on the can.
Very angry!!!

Having inherited a large expanse of decking that I’m not particularly a fan of, I had planned to tear it up and landscape, but found out from a neighbour that it had been pretty expensive when professionally installed, so I bit the bullet and decided to (supposedly) more cost-effectively maintain it ongoing instead.

I did a LOT of research over the course of a year(!) before eventually settling on Cuprinol, my top preference (an own brand elsewhere) being permanently sold out (what with the good weather, everyone had the same idea), so ‘making do’, even though I had read countless poor reviews. I rather naïvely and modestly thought that all those who were experiencing peeling merely hadn’t done their prep correctly. More fool me.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an outside tap / jetwasher, so spent many DAYS hard labour manually sweeping, hoovering(!), scrubbing, cleaning, rinsing on hands and knees on some of the hottest days in August last year. After waiting a further week to allow the decking cleaner to break down naturally on the advice of the manufacturer, I proceeded to paint (even going so far as using artists brushes to get into the nooks and crannies). The stain has a very ‘plasticky’ finish which already felt like it would just peel, so I meticulously applied in thin, even strokes - after all, 2 thin coats are better than 1 thick one.

As I said, the area is quite large - I needed 3, 5L tins of this, not to mention the ‘cost’ of my time, so naturally, I’m more than a little disgruntled that lo and behold, as many, many others before me, less than a year later, my decking looks virtually as aesthetically bad as it did from the 4 previous years’ accumulation of no maintenance and weathering in an exposed South-facing garden.

I was loosing the will to live by the time I finished, however, yes, it looks great when first applied, lots of compliments which made all the hard work seem worthwhile…Alas, I noticed a few months ago small bare patches appearing, and on closer inspection after a Spring tidy this weekend, 7 months after application, there are great swathes where the stain has come off down to bare wood (even on ‘no-traffic’ areas), not to mention it has more algae build-up than it did previously. I dare not try and clean this off, as the stain literally wipes away, no agitation required.

I had previously used Cuprinol Ducksback on my fences, which, after a couple of years has been overall very good, so thought I’d be ‘safe’ enough buying another Cuprinol product. The thought of the time and expense to keep this rigmarole up year on year makes me absolutely despair – unfortunately, it seems to be that this is one of the best of a bad bunch – no decking stains get glowing reviews, so what can you do?