# Forum Home Renovation Decking  Rained on freshly oiled deck - options?

## mattjk

Hi all,  
Firstly, a big thank-you to the owners and members of this forum - this place has been invaluable over the past month as I've gone through the process of maintaining a deck for the first time. Special props to UteMad and his "Cleaning and Oiling a Deck" thread in particular.  
That aside: 
Due to the combination of having a "bare" deck, limited time in the coming weeks, and a weather forecast suggesting only a little rain on Sunday evening (if any at all)\, I oiled my deck during the day on Sunday. This turned out to be ill-advised, as it then proceeded to rain steadily for about ~60 minutes during the late afternoon / evening. 
This has left me with spatters of brown deck oil all over yellow walls / deck railings, and a blotchy finish on the surface of the deck. While I've now learnt my lesson about deck oiling and rain (the hard way  :Frown: ), I'm looking for some advice in two areas - bearing in mind I used a "real" oil (Feast & Watson Merbau), rather than a water-based solution:  
1) What to do about the deck? 
Despite the rain, the deck hasn't come out too badly. I think I managed to get a fair bit of oil into it - the first coat of oil was almost completely dry before the second went on, the second was fairly dry before the third went on, and the third was partly dry before it started raining (~2.5 hours drying time - surface still quite oily / tacky). It certainly didn't soak up the rain that fell on it yesterday - it was still covered in water this morning, ~12 hours after it stopped raining. 
Now that the surface of the deck is dry to the touch, the majority of the deck still has a slick appearance, with a few stained-but-matte sections and some partially matte blotchiness in the slicker areas. Overall it's still WAY better than before I started - it hadn't had any sort of maintenance in at least 3.5 years and gets a lot of sun/rain. 
So, I'm thinking I have two options:  try to fix the problem immediately, or, given that it still looks pretty good and is well sealed (I think), wait a few months for it to weather a bit and then re-oil it - I figure a shorter-than-normal re-oiling time would be good for it anyway given how long it went without care before this. Does anyone see a problem with either of these options? 
Also, am I right in assuming that if I decide to wait a few months I should just clean with napisan and re-oil as per normal? What about if I try to fix it immediately? Should I still do a napisan clean, or can I just go over the top with another coat of oil?  
2) Best way to remove oil splatters? 
As I mentioned above, the rain kicked up spatters of oil all over walls / deck railings that are unfortunately painted a light yellow colour. I've tried using turps to remove the spatters, and while it has helped, there is still plenty of brown remaining. 
Short of re-painting, any suggestions on how to clean up the oil spatters?  
Thanks - really appreciate any advice. 
Cheers,
Matt

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## Bloss

I'd wait and oil in a couple of months - but maybe the finishing guys will say differently. Walls I reckon you'll have to re-paint .  .  .

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## mattjk

> I'd wait and oil in a couple of months - but maybe the finishing guys will say differently. Walls I reckon you'll have to re-paint .  .  .

  Thanks for the advice. Not quite what I wanted to hear on the walls, but at least they're not far from needing re-painting anyway  :Smilie:

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