What to do with painted, peeling porches

I have 4 year old pressure treated decking on my front and back porches (530 sq. ft.) that is 4 years old. It was painted by the builder and started peeling pretty quickly after we moved in. I'm not sure if it was painted too soon without drying or if the paint is poor quality. Now it looks pretty bad with about 30% peeled off. I have no details on what type of paint it is either.

Anyway, it looks like the better option is an opaque stain but I'm wondering what I should do if it's got remaining paint on it.

I plan on making it the same color but do I need to remove all of the paint before staining? Or just the loose stuff? I figure complete removal is necessary for the stain to penetrate the wood but that sounds like a lot of work.

Would I be better off just getting matching deck paint rather than stain and getting all of the loose stuff off and repaint?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

I would not use paint!!
Cleaning and pressure washing might remove the majority of the paint. At any rate I'd use a solid stain. It will cover the paint and won't need primer for the raw areas.

 

Ok, thanks. I wasn't sure how noticeable the difference between opaque stain over paint vs. opaque stain over bare wood would be. Stripping the paint would easily double the amount of work involved.

 

There will be a slight 'texture' difference between the stained wood and the paint with stain over it. The rest of the paint may fail at some point taking the stain above it although the fresh coat of solid stain will help the paint withstand more weather.

I would prefer using a solid stain with 90% of the paint removed. Cleaning the deck is always part of good prep - there may be a lot less paint left after cleaning.