Exterior Wood Care Inc

The previous owner of our house did not properly seal the ipe decks, so within a year of us moving in, they had gotten very dull from being pelted by the rain. A neighbor on NextDoor referred us to Andre's company, Exterior Wood Care. Not only was Andre's quote more affordable than competing bids, he was vastly more knowledgeable on the care of ipe than the salespeople of other companies. Andre took care to lightly pressure wash the decks and fully remove the old layer of sealer. After the surfaces had completely dried, he applied a new coat of Ipe Oil. The results were fantastic (see below) and we would definitely hire Andre again for any deck maintenance!

Andre has been caring for our deck for many years, and he has never disappointed. Always matter-of-fact and informative (no sales pitch), always on time, always consistent in his work, and always careful to make sure that you are satisfied with the result. He knows what he is doing and he does it well. Highly recommend him.

Very well. No peeling after two years

Andre has been caring for our deck for several years and always does a fantastic job. The first year I emailed him photos, which helped him plan the job and give us a realistic estimate. He is extremely knowledgeable about wood and what each situation requires to look and wear the best. He saved the information on the brand and color stain he used so was able to duplicate his work in following years. This year the weather has not cooperated and his work was delayed but was nevertheless completed with the same care he has shown before. We will definitely continue to use his services for as long as he is available.

Deck looks great. Andre does a great job carefully cleaning and staining the deck.

Had a $25,000 deck built in February 2015 and immediately contacted Andre, as he was the only stain person recommended on the deck builder's (Eastside Decks) contract, so I figured he was top of the line. Sent Andre an extremely detailed description of my deck, taken right from the building plans, so it was 100% accurate, with the total square footage, including that of the lattice, pergola, and benches. With all of this info, his rough estimate came back at $1018.90 plus tax. He even thanked me for the very detailed information, but, I realized this was still an estimate, so I was prepared to possibly pay a bit more (or even a bit less based on past experiences with other contractors), however, since the info I provided was so detailed, I was expecting to pay pretty close to $1018.90. April 23, 2015, Andre comes out with stain samples and to look at the deck... made no mention of possible additional fees. May 9, 2015, Andre and assistant show up to start the job, and suddenly I’m presented with an updated invoice of $2319.87 – more than double the estimate! His reason for the price increase was because of the pergola and benches (and possibly the latticework)… which of course were already mentioned, along with their square footage, back in February (and remember he made no mention of extra fees on April 23), but we had an expensive deck that was being exposed to the elements, and at this point other stain contractors were booked for the summer – so we did not want to walk away at the last minute and leave our new deck unprotected for another year; being in this spot we agreed to go ahead and pay what seemed like a pretty steep price, figuring that at the very least, we’d get a great, long lasting professional stain job. During the entire job it appeared Andre was supervising and an assistant was doing all of the work. I know very little about deck staining, but from the very beginning, watching him work, I was getting nervous. He started staining the pergola and its overhead beams first. Covered the lamps, but the deck boards, benches and all the railings below the pergola were left uncovered, and huge amounts of stain was allowed to drip down from the pergola and overhead beams and soak in as he worked. When the job was completely finished, the area beneath the pergola was obviously a much darker color than the rest of the deck, and there were huge dark splotches on the railings where the stain had been allowed to drip from above. When finished, the deck was several different shades, ranging from way lighter than we wanted to way darker than we wanted.. so dark you could not even see the grain. But again, I don’t know much about staining, so I figured we’d wait and see what everything looked like when it dried. After a few weeks the uneven stain job with the very dark areas and dark drip splotches is unchanged, and by this time I had also noticed several missed spots where the original wood had no stain at all. In addition, the deck was pretty much unusable for weeks after any staining was done. Whenever it got warm and sunny the oils and stain seemed to just rise and sit on the surface, and walking on it would result in oily and stained shoe soles. Who wants to use that? I guessed later this was because the stain and oils never properly soaked in… or something… but whatever happened, there was no way it was normal. 5/30/15, emailed Andre with pics and said things did not look right at all. On 5/31/15 he came out and reapplied some stain to the light areas and missed areas, and applied mineral oil to the super dark areas and splotches below the pergola and on the rails. It looked a little better.. not $2300 better, but better… and I figured that was the best it was going to get. Unfortunately it rained later that night.. bad luck. I emailed him and let him know and he basically said let's see what happens. What happened was that the new stain had rain spots all over and marks where the stain ran... looked bad... at that point I was just going to live with it and not bother the man again, but that changed, because.... A month or so after that, the deck seemed to FINALLY fully dry.. no more oils and stained shoes. We figured the bad deck stain experience was over. But shortly after that, we started noticing the first small signs of peeling that got worse and worse through the Fall weather. On December 2, 2015, I contacted Andre again, telling him it was clear the stain job had FAILED and needed to be redone… I specifically said stripped and redone. His response was to email him again "in April or May (2016) and he would take care of it", which I did, and we eventually set up a new stain date of August 18, 2016, when the weather was better. Between that December 2, 2015 email and the next time I saw Andre on August 18th, I'd guess at least 75%-85% of the stain on all of the walking surfaces and steps had flaked and worn completely away – it looked absolutely horrible – embarrassing - and we had to live with it that way for months. See pics! I have many more on my cell phone. In addition to the eyesore that the walking surfaces had become, there were obvious signs of peeling, unevenness (and in my opinion, accelerated fading) on the railings, benches, and pergola. August 18, 2016 finally rolls around.. more than 15 months have passed since the original stain job. Andre arrives 45 minutes early and to my mild surprise says he will strip JUST the deck floorboards and re-stain them, not the rest of the deck….… the big surprise came when he said it would only cost me ***** another $750.00!!! ***** In all of our emails, this is the first mention of me having to pay extra to repair the job that was never done properly in the first place. And according to him, the pergola, benches and railings were fine and did not need to be redone. I disagreed.. they are not horrible, but only because they did not get foot traffic.. they are still peeling, splotchy and fading in spots; like the rest of the deck, a failed stain job, just a different level of fail. When I refused to pay the additional $750.00, Andre said he would just strip the deck floor boards (walking surfaces) and be done with the job, leaving it up to me to re-stain. When I asked if he could at least strip the benches too, which had some normal use wear, but also lots of accelerated weathering and peeling, he said no, they were fine and that he had already lost money by “fixing” the deck on 5/31/15 (which obviously wasn’t a fix, it was a temporary band-aid that quickly came off). TODAY we are left with an expensive deck that is 50% failing stain job and 50% stripped deck boards, and seemingly all other stain companies are booked until NEXT summer. We are worse off than before we hired Andre: totally out our $2300+, and will still need to pay somebody else even MORE to stain (and no doubt strip the railings, pergola, benches that he refused to do). By the way, the stripped deck boards no longer look like they did before the original stain job.. they are splotchy in many places, where some of the stain that did manage to soak in deep (mostly under the pergola and lamp posts where it was allowed to drip and sit for a long time) could not be completely removed. I have no idea if this will be visible underneath the new stain job, the way grain is... I’ve read Andre’s replies to other complaints so I’m definitely not expecting a happy response, but I can promise I am not trying to ruin anybody’s reputation or business. I don’t leave bad reviews often or take it lightly, but come on, just read my story... it’s 100% true, with zero exaggeration. We are very unhappy with the job and out of a lot of money. My wife cried (on her birthday, no less!) when I told her that Andre was asking for another $750.00 to fix just half of a job that he never completed properly in the first place. On a positive note, Andre was a nice enough guy… not rude or anything… and he was always on time, often even earlier than expected, and I’m sure he’s completed many beautiful jobs… this just was not one of them. What Andre never would admit – even though we both knew he knew the truth - was that the stain job completely failed and was never properly completed in the first place – therefore we never received what we (over)paid for - just surprises and excuses - even going so far as blaming the composition of the wood (which was brand new, 100% natural, and clean, so…). Oh, also, I was planning on talking to him when he finished stripping the boards.. I was going to ask him for the stain he used in case I wanted to save money and attempt to stain the newly stripped deck boards myself, with my own two hands.… but as soon as he finished stripping the wood he took off for good without a word. What it comes down to is that Andre needs to stand behind his work. If a job goes bad due to absolutely NO FAULT of his customer’s, HE has to work to get it 100% right and take any financial hit, not allow his customer to do so…..… that’s what an honest, reputable business person would do. If he would have just stained the deck boards after stripping them instead of trying to charge us an additional $750.00 (!) to fix his mistake, and leaving us today with a half-stained deck, I would not even have written this review. Overall an extremely disappointing experience.

They were ridiculous in price. You had a special on them for like $500 off in the book. They gave me an estimate of like $45,000 it was way out of line. They were very nice, the salesman were good but a little pushy. The price though, I could go out and buy a Lexus for that. They were nice, good and thorough. They were personable but they were salesmen too. I went myself and looked at how much the materials were for the sq footage I had and it was $6000 so the labor was very expensive. They told me I did not need new framing and another company said I did and showed me the pictures. They should have included framing for that price.

Andre provided honest input, even though it meant that he wouldn't be hired!

Andre did an excellent job sanding and re-staining our 500 sq. ft. cedar 2x4 deck in the summer 2014. I was amazed when he showed up alone and did the entire job alone! Andre's work is meticulous; for example he was able to sand under our 150 or so posts along the deck often with barely a 1/4 inch clearance between them and the deck itself. Despite having other jobs going at the same time he finished ours on time. The price was better than some other estimates. The work is just great.

No work was done because Andre recommended replacing the deck, which is not something his company does.

We bought the property in 2011 and the previous owners had painted the deck. Over the past 4 years, the deck had taken quite a beating from the wet weather and the moss. I found Exterior Wood Care (Andre Orlov) via Angie's list and his reviews were great. Contacted him at the beginning of May and sent him the pictures and the dimensions of the deck. Andre responded promptly with an estimate of $1,800 (plus tax). After interviewing and considering Andre and several other service providers, I decided to engage Andre. He's answers to my questions were forthright and he came across as honest and reliable. Due to his busy schedule and the weather, he couldn't get the job started until July. But once he did, he spent three days straight sanding, sealing, and staining the deck, He removed all the paint and the moss stains from the deck and the benches. He also did the side boards! Additionally, he made some minor repairs and charged me for the materials only. Andre used the Mahogany color "Ready Seal" product and the deck turned out beautiful. One of my pet peeves is when providers don't clean up after a job. Andre cleaned up and left the deck and yard in great shape. I'm definitely going to recommend him and use him again. P.S. The final bill was $1,193.66 which was $600 less that his original estimate! It's great to work with an honest craftsman!

Andre did a fantastic job identifying the cause of the issues we were having with the stain on our deck (peeling and bubbling) and recommending the best course of action. His work was amazing, and our deck now looks brand new. I'll definitely go back to him for future exterior wood needs.

Andre Orlov of Exterior Wood Care responded that same day (5/19/2014) with a rough estimate and if I was interested to let him know and he would set appointment to return and make firm estimate and if approved would begin project same day. In my dealings with Andre he was super in responding and seems to check his emails at least daily. I decided I would let Exterior Wood Care do the job and Andre said he would contact me when he could schedule me in, which he thought would probably be after July 4th. On 6/10/2014 I sent query to Andre to find out where I currently stood on his schedule. He responded that he was glad I had emailed and was planning on coming 6/12/2014 if the weather stayed good. As promised Andre came by on the 12th and provided firm estimate which was $50 higher than rough estimate due to extra wood and labor to replace guard railing. The price with tax was $1493. I approved and immediately he setup his equipment and sprayed high pressure water to clean up the gray paint that was loosened on the deck. 6/24/2014 Andre returned and spent several hours sanding and then rebuilding the guard railing. It was after 4PM when he finished up and we had a discussion about the stain I wanted. He had an oil based mahogony with him and I decided to go with that since he could do it right then. The job was finished right about 6PM and it did not rain over the next 24 hours. I would guess with the two trips out and back, time spent procuring materials, time at the job site, there was a total of 12 hours labor expended. All in all I am pleased with the appearance of my deck and believe it is a superior quality job. I thought the price was a little more than perhaps someone else would do it for, and perhaps a good deal more than if I had done it myself. On the other hand I know it is done correctly and beautifully.

We stained our own deck last year, and believe me, it was nice to have someone else do it for us this year! We were very pleased with the results. The deck looks great and Andre gave us some us some useful tips on how to keep it looking good. We found Andre to be very professional and he took pride in doing a thorough job. There was no mess to clean up afterward, no damage to plants or shrubs, or house. He was knowledgeable about the best products to use. We were pleasantly surprised that he sanded the whole deck. We had expected him to only do spot sanding. We will definitely use Andre's services next time we need to do our deck!

We had treated our deck with a product that is extremely difficult to remove and staining over it looks terrible. Last summer Andre removed the product from all of our railings and posts and used an oil product that makes future care much less expensive and easy to maintain. Because our large deck is covered by Doug Fir trees, it requires yearly care. I highly recommend Andre.

I spoke with Andre last September but since it was late in the year and the weather was not conducive, he had informed me that he would get to our project at the earliest next year. This year we scheduled the work as soon as the weather improved for outdoor projects. One the first day, Andre cleaned the deck very well and gave very useful information about how to take care of maintaining and staining the deck in future. The next week, he informed me ahead of time about when he was planning to finish the project. He arrived on time and stained and sealed the deck which now looks great after the work was completed. He also answered all our questions patiently. Overall I was very impressed with his work and would recommend his services to all my friends.

Andre pressured washed and sealed a small L shaped deck. The work was perfect. He was great! Very responsive to emails and calls. Will be using him again in the future!

They were very good. His pricing were a little bit high but she seem to have way more knowledge than anybody else and she did an amazing job. They're very knowledgeable.

I?ve written a story below, but here is what you need to know: Andre cares about his work?he takes pride in it?and he should: his work is fantastic. The deck on the home I just purchased was neglected. Worse yet, it was painted gray. I didn?t think it could be salvaged. So I took some measurements and photos and sent them to Andre at Exterior Wood Care, Inc. (actually, I used the website). Andre responded within 24 hours. Let me warn you: I think Andre works like 18 hours a day, so you may get an email from him at midnight. Read it because in it he provides excellent detail on how to prepare the deck for his handiwork and what to expect on the day of work. His estimate was competitive and he fit me into a crowded schedule, even accommodating a change in the weather. He kept in contact with me in the days before the work and throughout the day on the day of the work. He examined every nook and cranny of the deck and made sure it was prepared for treatment?even making recommendations as to future repairs to some boards. The end result was simply outstanding. I now have a deck that will last for a long time and look beautiful as it ages. Thank you Andre.

I contacted Exterior Wood Care for an estimate and received one quickly. The costs looked good, so I asked them to book me a time. Nobody answered my email for 11 DAYS. I had to follow up to get a response. My follow-up has only one question: what is the earliest date that we can do this work? Andre's response: sorry, I don't know. Summary of my interaction with Andre: - Doesn't pay attention to his email - His inattention to email pushed back my possible project date - Doesn't know his own schedule (?!) - Apparently doesn't know when he will know his own schedule (?!?!) But don't take my word for it, here's the entire email chain below. I'm happy to forward the original. ------------ (7/15) Hello Andrew,We booked for the next 4 weeks, if you ready to wait, your project will cost around $990 plus tax.Thanks,Andre. ------------ (7/22) Hi Andre, Thanks for the quote, and sorry for my delay in responding. If you still have availability in August, let's schedule a date. My only blackout dates in August are 8/10, 8/30, and 8/31. Best, Andrew ------------ (7/22) Andrew,Sounds good. I'll try to take a look at the project before I start, it might be complicated.Thanks,Andre. ------------ (7/22) Ok, what is the earliest date you're available? Thanks! Andrew ------------ (8/2) Hi Andre, Still waiting to hear from you about availability. If you're not available, please let me know so I can look for another vendor. Thanks, Andrew ------------ (8/2) Hello Andrew,Sorry didn't get back to you earlier.I will not be able to start your project earlier then September.Please let me know if you'll find someone, so I can cancel the project.Thanks,Andre. ------------ (8/2) Thanks for getting back to me, Andre. What's the earliest date you're available? Andrew ------------ (8/2) Andrew,I cant tell you right now, but I'll email you as soon as I know.Thanks,Andre.

Andre is a true expert and professional in the deck restoration industry. I was referred to him when I was calling around for bids to have my deck boards replaced and found all these great reviews. I emailed him all pertinent details on his website and received a prompt, detailed and accurate quote. After a couple of more emails back and forth to go over details, Andre came over and did an on-site estimate. Later that week he came for day 1 of the job and pressured washed the deck to remove as much of the old solid paint. About 5 days later he came back to remove the remaining paint by sanding every nook and cranny of my deck. It was also very hot that day and probably wasn't easy, but Andre worked hard and diligent in getting it done. Unfortunately it was too late to apply the stain and the forecast had rain in a couple of days. Andre juggled jobs around to come back the next day to apply the stain and protect my deck just in time for the rain that came the next day. The deck looks sooooooo much better than before and now I can enjoy entertaining people over without being embarrassed of ugly peeling/cracking paint or the look of a worn out deck. It looks like he missed 2 little spots on my deck and I have yet to inform him, but I am already writing this positive review before doing so because I am extremely confident in his professionalism and high standard of work that he will come back after I inform him when he can to touch up those spots. My neighbor who has similar deck issues is so impressed that he wants to do it to his deck too. Of course, I have referred Andre in a heartbeat. Some notes to those interested in his services. Andre prefers emails and replies usually the same day. When you submit for an online estimate, provide details and as many photos of your deck to get an accurate quote. Some people here have said his prices are a little high, but when I called to other contractors I found it very comparable. I highly recommend Andre and will continue to refer him to friends, neighbors and co-workers who need similar services.

Our deck was a mess and now it looks new. Andre is a true professional and we enjoyed doing business with him. Don't hesitate in hiring this company!

Andre tried to do a simple refinishing of the deck but the previous work done on the deck was such that it prevented that from happening. Andre had to sand the entire deck before being able to re-stain and seal. He did a fantastic job and the deck looks great. Thanks, Andre, for a job well-done! Note: Although the cost was a little higher than we had wanted to spend, this was the result of more work needing to be done and well worth it

Andre was very busy so I had wait for awhile but he was very responsive via email and when he said he would be there he was there. He was honest, a very hard worker and was very pleasant to deal with.

We hired Andre to refinish a covered back porch and associated rails and fence as well as a simple exposed deck. The deck was in pretty bad shape, not having been refinished for about 12 years. Andre was responsive when called for an estimate and came out within a few days. Scheduling was a bit of a problem because (a) Andre had many other jobs he was trying to coordinate and (b) we had visitors and several trips scheduled. Eventually, the job was scheduled and Andre came as promised. He did a fine job pressure washing the wood. He came back about a week later after the wood had dried to apply the stain and he replaced several rotten boards in the deck. The stain came out a bit darker than I thought it would because of our older wood, but the final job looks very nice and it was certainly worth the price. There were two problems with the job, but Andre took care of both right away. First, it must have been a windy day during staining because there were 20 or so drops of stain on our stone patio. When I told Andre about these, he came right away to take care of it and his quick work removed everything. Second, I noticed a few days later that there was a spot missing stain on a lower part of the handrails. Again, Andre came out right away to take care of it and even left a bit of stain so we could touch up any other problems that occured in the future. Overall, we are happy with the job and would hire Andre again.