If you’re trying to work out how much deck stain do I need for my deck, then this quick 1 minute method will give you your answer instantly…

Here’s the quick and easy formula…

You need to measure the length of your deck and multiply that by the width of your deck…

That will give you the total square feet of your deck…

Next you need to divide the square foot by 175…

The answer will give you how many gallons you need…

Or…

If you want to work out how many litres of stain you need, here’s the formula for that one too…

The length of your deck multiplied by the width of your deck will give you the square metres of your deck…

Then divide the square metres by 10 and you will know how many litres you will need…

And that’s the 1 minute formula…

If you’re sitting there scratching your head and you’re a little confused, don’t worry about it…

I’m going explain this formula, step by step so you know exactly how to work it out…

First I’ll go through measuring in feet and gallons and then I’ll show you how to work the simple formula for metres and litres for all my local Aussie peoples…

Sood cool?

Perfect, let’s get into it…

The “How much stain do I need for my deck” Step by Step Formula…

Ok, the easiest way to work out how much deck stain you need for your deck is to grab yourself a tape measure, a calculator and a pad and pen…

First measure the length of your deck and write that down…

This is the length…

Then measure the width of your deck and write that down too…

This is the width…

So for example, let’s say your deck measured up to 10 metres long by 4 metres wide…

Or 33 ft long by 13 ft wide…

What you wanna do next is multiply the length by the width…

It looks like this…

33ft x 13ft…

And the answer is 429ft…

That’s’ the total square foot of your decking…

That’s the number you need to know for the next step…

Because we want to know how many gallons of deck stain you’ll need right?

Or if you’re in Australia, you’ll be calculating the number of litres of deck oil you’ll need…

Don’t worry, I’ll cover both for you here so it’s nice and easy to follow…

Let’s start with working out how many gallons of deck stain you’ll need…

To work out how many gallons of deck stain you’ll need here’s what you do…

What you want to do is, read the back of the bottle of deck stain you’re planning to use…

It will tell you the average coverage you’ll get per gallon of deck stain…

If you don’t have any deck stain selected just yet, the average coverage for most quality deck stains is 175 ft per gallon of deck stain…

It does vary depending on the age of your timber and even the type of timer your deck is built with…

Brands like Restore-A-Deck estimate the coverage of their stain to be between 100 to 200 per gallon…

For this we’ll just stick with the estimate of 175 ft per gallon…

So the next step is to divide the total square feet of your deck, which for our example is, 429ft, multiplied by the 175…

I would actually round the 429 up to 430ft

So, 430 divided by 175 is…

2.5 gallons of deck stain…

But that’s not exactly how much deck stain you’ll need…

That’s how much stain you’ll need for only one coat…

You’ll need to work out how many coats of stain you’ll need and then multiply 2.5 gallons by the number of coats you’ll be applying…

For this example we’ll be applying two coats of stain…

So the next step in the formula is 2 coats multiplied by 2.5 gallons per coat equals…

5 gallons of deck stain!!

Does that make sense?

It does??

Perfect, because that’s all there is to it…

Just a quick side note, a lot of oil based stain only require 1 coat whereas, quality water based deck stains could need up top 3 coats to get proper protection…

So you’ll have to adjust your calculation to take this into consideration…

Now you know exactly how much stain you need for your deck…

Unless you’re from Australia and that whole calculation made no sense…

Don’t worry, I’ve got you…

How to work out how many litres of deck stain you need…

If you want to work out how much deck stain you need but you deal with metres and litres instead of gallons and feet, then this section is for you…

So remember that we want to get the total square metres of your decking…

So you need to measure the width of your deck

And then you need to measure the length…

Then, you need to multiply the length of your deck by the width of your deck…

Our example is 10m x 4m…

So the square metres of our deck is 40 square metres…

Next we need to work out how much stain we need for one coat…

If you read the back of your bucket of stain, the average coverage is 10 square metres per 1 litre of stain…

The calculation for this step is 40 divided by 10 which of course equals 4…

So you need 4 litres for one coat of deck stain…

If you’re going to apply two coats, then you times that amount by 2…

And you end up needing 8 litres of stain for 2 coats…

It’s as simple as that…

I hope that makes sense to you, because…

That’s how you work out how much stain you need for your deck…

Even if you’re in America or Australia or Canada or even the UK…

All you need to know is what unit of measure you use in your country…

For example, metres or feet…

As well as if you use litres of gallons or whatever you call it in your country…

Then on the back of your can of stain it will have the average gallons per foot…

Or the average litres per metre…

Then multiply that amount by the number of coats you need and…

Voila!!

That’s exactly how much deck stain you’ll need…

And that’s pretty much all you need to know, so I’ll leave it right there for today…

I’ll see you on the next one…

Peace,

Jason

FAQ’s