Teak deck removal
The deck is the easy part. What is under it decides the project.
01
When a deck needs removing rather than repairing
Most decks that come off could have been repaired five years earlier. By the time removal is the answer, thickness has usually already settled the question.
A deck is a candidate for repair while the planks still stand proud of the caulk and the failures are local: a run of seam here, a few plugs there. Removal becomes the honest answer when the wear is general rather than local: planks level with or below the seam line across whole areas, caulk lifting along full runs, movement underfoot, water showing below deck fittings.
There is a second reason, and it has nothing to do with the teak. If the substrate underneath is wet or delaminated, the deck has to come off whatever condition it is in, because anything bonded onto it will fail again.
If you are not sure which of those describes your deck, send us photographs first. We will tell you if it has years left.
02
How we remove a teak deck
Taking the planks off is straightforward. Taking them off without damaging what they were bonded to is not, and that is where the time and the cost go. Two stages decide how the rest of the project runs.
Old adhesive and fastener removal
Planks lift comparatively easily. The adhesive bed underneath does not, and it has to come off completely. A new deck bonded onto old residue is bonded to the residue, not to the boat. Where the original deck was screwed, every fastener has to come out and every hole has to be made good. Plugs hide screws that have been in place for decades; some come out and some shear, and the sheared ones are why removal is quoted as a range rather than a number.
Substrate assessment and repair
With the deck off, the substrate is finally visible, and this is the moment the project either stays on budget or does not. We check for moisture, for delamination in laminate decks, and for core that has gone soft around old fastener holes and fittings. Sound areas need cleaning and fairing. Wet or crushed core has to be cut out and replaced before anything goes back down, and an uneven surface may need levelling so the new deck has a true bed to bond to. This is also where we come back to you with a revised figure, because it is the first point at which the job can be quoted honestly rather than estimated.
03
What we find under most old decks
The pattern repeats. Damage is rarely spread evenly; it concentrates where water had a way in and nowhere to go.
Around deck fittings (stanchion bases, cleats, tracks), where the bedding gave up long before the teak looked bad. Along margins and around hatches, where the seam has the most work to do. Under old screw holes, where water travelled down the fastener and sat in the core.
The rest of the deck is often fine, and that is the useful part: a substrate is usually repairable in patches rather than wholesale, and knowing that before you commit changes what the project costs.
What we almost never find is a substrate that failed on its own. It fails because something above it leaked, which is the argument for dealing with caulk while it is still only a caulk problem.
04
Removal and replacement as one project
Removal on its own leaves you with an open, faired substrate and a boat that cannot be used. Almost everyone runs the two together.
Done as one project the templating happens with the deck off and the substrate visible, which is the most accurate point to take it. The panels are then built and finished in our workshop while the boat sits, and the fitting is short because the caulking and the first sanding are already done.
TEMPLATING →PREFABRICATED PANELS →
Request a removal quote
Tell us the boat and what it needs. We quote per vessel, not from a price list.
