Summer is approaching fast. You're ready for lazy evenings outside enjoying barbecue – but is your deck ready for the fun?

A bit of maintenance right now can keep summer's favorite stage healthy all year – and you and your family safe along with it, home-repair experts say. Here's their advice:

Give your deck a once-over
Tim Carter, a former contractor and custom home builder who's now a syndicated newspaper columnist and operator of the Web site Askthebuilder.com advises homeowners to inspect their decks carefully each spring for problems that may have surfaced over the winter. "Check the railings to make sure they're nice and stiff," Carter says. Also:

• Watch for cracks on structural timbers. Are the stair stringers – the notched boards that stair planks rest upon, sometimes called carriages – cracked after a long winter with heavy snow loads?
   
• Take a slotted screwdriver and poke into the wood in spots that look suspect, or where moisture commonly collects – around stair stringers and at the bottom of posts, suggests Steve Cory, author of several books about decks, including most recently "The Sunset Complete Deck Book." "You don't have to push in too hard," Cory says.
   
• Check the deck's surface for old nailheads or screws that are protruding, and nail or screw them back in, advises Don Vandervort, a home-repair expert and founder of HomeTips.com. Yank the ones that won't stay and replace them with galvanized decking screws – a long screw with coarse threads that's made to be driven with a power-drill driver, says Vandervort.

If you find problems and you're not a handy woodworker, call in a professional to make repairs. Otherwise, make the repairs yourself and move on to the next step:

Get the gunk out
"You want to get it clean," Vandervort says of the first step to spring deck care. The greatest enemy of decks – which are usually made of wood – is water, he explains. Throughout the year, leaves, dirt and pollen fall on your deck. "Basically it turns to organic material that holds water, and that allows the water to saturate the wood more," which can lead to dry rot, Vandervort explains. So the gunk has to go:

• Dig between the slats. Decks usually have about 1/16-inch spaces between boards, for water to drain. Dirt loves to build up here. After sweeping the deck, clean these gaps; an old putty knife works well, Vandervort says.
   
• Get the underbelly. "A lot of decks rot underneath. So the main thing is to clean out any area or nooks and crannies where leaves and dirt can get in there," says Cory. "Most often it happens at the ledger, where the deck attaches to the house. That's the most common problem area."
   
• Don't forget the intersections. Moisture and material also love to collect where supporting joists meet overlying deck boards, says Cory. There's some debate over whether cleaning these areas is critical, because joists should be made from pressure-treated lumber, but "it's better to be safe," Cory says.
   
• Got splinters? If you notice splinters or fraying in the deck that you want to address, do so with some light hand-sanding, suggests Cory; electric belt sanders can easily damage a deck and should be left to the pros.

To pressure wash or not
If your deck isn't very dirty or faded, next you may simply need to wash your deck with soap and water, and rinse, says Vandervort. But many decks need more love than that.

Some experts say pressure washing, if done correctly (preferably by a professional who uses a wide-spray nozzle), can be an effective and nondamaging way to remove dirt from a deck. But expert Carter isn't convinced. "In my opinion, it's a mistake," he says. "The pressure washers, the power washers, are destructive." Why? All too often, he says, the high-pressure water erodes the deck's softer wood. Carter says he has seen many pressure-washed decks whose planks have valleys in them and look fuzzy. While pressure washing done very, very carefully might not cause this to happen, he concedes, "most homeowners do not know how to do it." Composite decks and vinyl decks, however, are better able to stand up to power washing.

If you have a wood deck, there are some viable alternatives to pressure washing, including:

• Bleach washing. For dirtier decks – and ones that have mildew, which usually appears as darker stains on the boards – one possibility is to "mix a light solution of water with a little bit of (household-type chlorine) bleach," says Vandervort.  Scrub on the solution, then hose it off with clean water. The downside: Chlorine bleach can harm surrounding vegetation.
   
• Oxygen bleach. Carter much prefers so-called oxygen bleach – oxalic acid – which can be purchased at home-improvement stores and grocery stores. "It doesn't discolor the wood; it isn't toxic to all the vegetation around," he says. "You just put it in water, apply it and let it sit for about 10 to 15 minutes and scrub it with a brush lightly. … The longer you let it soak, the less you scrub." This bleach basically revives the color of gray wood by more gently removing some of the outermost layer of dead wood – rather like someone taking a pumice stone to rough, dead skin, explains Vandervort. 

Gentlemen, start your brushes: Staining and sealing
Why bother sealing a deck? Decks have two sworn enemies: the ultraviolet (UV) rays of sunlight, which fade them, and moisture, which destroys them.  If water soaks into a deck, the wood expands, Carter explains. "And as soon as the water evaporates, that wood will contract," creating cracks. This can happen several times a day, and these cracks deepen over time, allowing the water to go even deeper into the wood. "It's like driving a wedge into a piece of wood, for firewood," Carter says. "That's why you want to seal them."

Here's a simple test to determine whether your wood deck needs sealing: Sprinkle just one or two drops of water onto its planks. If the water does not bead, but instead forms a dark spot on the wood in the first few seconds, the deck is no longer sealed, Cory says.

The staining and sealing possibilities are endless, experts say. So they offer a few general guidelines:

• Get local advice. Different parts of the country have different climates that put different stresses on decks. Talk to employees at your local home-improvement store for recommendation about what decks in your area require, says Cory.
   
• Fight the sworn enemies. Remember the deck's foes? "You want to choose a finish that has UV protection listed on the label. It should be water-repellent or waterproof, not just water-resistant," says Vandervort. "You want one that has both." Beyond that, what you choose depends on what kind of look you want your deck to have. "Most people like to use transparent stains and finishes because they look better over the long term," Vandervort says. "And it also allows more of the wood's natural character to show through."
   
• Don't paint.  If you paint your deck, as opposed to applying something that sinks in, you're just asking for work, say Carter and others. "Avoid anything that leaves a film like paint," he says. "Paint peels … and then it's a nightmare to refinish the deck." In short, he argues, "Penetrating sealers are better."
   
• Go synthetic. Carter is partial to a finish that has a water repellent with a synthetic resin. Why? Those with natural compounds can break down and become food for the very mildew and algae you're trying to fight, he says.

Making it easier next time
Chances are, you'd previously let your deck go, and getting it ready for this season requires a lot of work. How do you make the experience less painful next time?

First, sweep the deck and keep it clean, the experts advise. And don't make more work for yourself than necessary, says Carter. "People don't always have to clean and seal every surface every year. Treatments on vertical surfaces can last up to three times longer than horizontal surfaces," he says. But, he adds, "the job is really hard if you let it go."