Your teak garden furniture can happily be left out all year round and requires very little in the way of care or maintenance. That is one of the great things about using teak wood to make outdoor furniture. However, it’s important to understand that because teak is, obviously, a natural product it will, over a period of time, gradually loose its initial ‘golden brown’ colour and weather to a silvery, ash grey patina, which many actually prefer to the initial colour of the wood. This process will happen within the first year if the furniture is left outside and un-covered. Leaving the furniture to weather naturally will not damage it.
If you look online for information on how to care for your teak garden furniture, you’ll find conflicting advice.
Based on our extensive experience with teak furniture, if you are happy letting the natural weathering process take place, then all you need to do is just gently wash the furniture down a couple of times a year with a mild soap and warm water combination, just to clean off any tree and bird deposits. Applying an actual treatment to your furniture is a preference and certainly not a necessity.
Applying a Treatment to your Teak Garden Furniture
Treatments and oils are designed to maintain the original golden-brown appearance of your teak furniture. These treatments do not effectively nourish or help strengthen the wood in any way as they do not get absorbed into the wood. Instead, they sit on the surface, and they too will begin to fade over the season. Therefore, the process of applying an oil or treatment will need to be repeated once or twice a year to maintain the colour.
There are some key things to be aware of if you choose to apply a treatment to your furniture.
- Always do a patch test first to make sure you are happy as any treatment applied can affect the colour of the furniture
- Make sure the furniture is 100% dry and free from any surface debris before applying any treatment. Even if the furniture looks dry, it may actually still be a little be damp so ensure there have been at least two-three fully dry days, before using any treatments
- Do not be tempted to layer the oil, this can lock in moisture and cause what is known as ‘black spotting’.
Oils vs Sealants
Teak oils are typically applied as a colourant, and they will fade over the season. Oils are best applied with a cloth or sponge as this limits the amount of product going on to the furniture and gives a more even finish.
You can restore the golden brown colour to weathered teak furniture with the right oil treatments. We would recommend this product; Teak Garden Furniture Restoration Kit.
Teak sealants seal the wood, they are applied wet and typically dry within 24hrs and should not affect the colour or finish of the furniture. A sealant can assist the woods own natural oils to repel water can give protection against UV rays, in this way sealants can slow down (but not fully stop) the process of weathering and fading.
What to expect from the structure of the furniture
The structure of the furniture pretty much remains the same as the first day you put it outside, Teak is a dense, hard wood, and is naturally oily, this prevents heavy splitting or cracking, making it ideal for outdoor furniture. Like any wood, indoors or outdoors, it does move (swell and contract) as the weather changes. This is a natural process and cannot be avoided. As a result, you may occasionally see fine hairline splits appear at the end of the grain, perhaps on the arm of a chair or bench for example. This is called ‘checking’ and it does not in any way affect the structural integrity of the furniture. Typically, most people simply ignore it, but for cosmetic purposes it can be treated if preferred.
(More information on dealing with this can be found here, in our aftercare section.)
We would recommend simply leaving your furniture for the first year to weather naturally and then, consider an oil or treatment if you want to restore the colour after that. Remember this is a preference and not a requirement.
Please be aware; applying any treatments or oils within the first year does void your warranty.
We do get asked why this is the case. The answer is that there are lots of different types of treatments on the market, all containing different ingredients and different strengths and some of these will not be appropriate for use on teak garden furniture. In addition, the treatment may not be applied correctly – excessive layering on of the product is a common issue. Kingsley Smythe cannot be responsible for the treatment chosen or the way that it was applied, and so this is why we have to have a line in our Ts and Cs that effectively says; ‘any treatment applied voids the warranty.’
It may seem there is a lot of information around when it comes to the effective aftercare of teak garden furniture but really, in our opinion, just a simple mild soap and warm water wash down after the winter is the best aftercare and let the wood age naturally. It really will look after itself. As always, the Kingsley Team are totally willing to answer any questions you may have on this. Just contact us.
(N.B. between March and August we are typically super-busy and it may be a while before we can respond.)
