Review: "5-Minute Fence Stain"

[tagryn]

Recently, we had to get one of our side privacy fences replaced. We used McGee Fence and were very pleased with their work. The focus of this review is on a product called "Five Minute Fence Stain" (5MFS) which I used to stain the fence after it was installed.

After spending many hours this summer hand-staining the back fence when we'd had that replaced last year, I was looking around for a better solution. We did this side fence replacement in late October, and I knew there was no way I'd be able to get the fence stained before winter arrived if I did it by hand, and I didn't want to leave it exposed all winter. This is what led me to the 5MFS product. Basically, you attach the 5MFS bottle to a garden hose and it sprays the stain onto the fence. The online demo seemed pretty nifty, although some of the user reviews about the product gave me some concern. (for a more positive review, see this). Here's my experience with 5MFS:

Overall, I can see how this product can be very frustrating to use at first. Its a good concept, but needs improvements in a number of areas to reach its potential.

* One problem with the design is that the nozzle can't handle water streaming at high pressure, or for that matter even at "normal" garden hose pressure. This means you have to fiddle with the on-off switch to get a stream level that is high enough to push the water/stain mix onto the fence, but not so much that it overloads the nozzle which makes the whole thing shut off. To "reset" the nozzle, you have to turn the water off, then turn it slowly on again. I had to do this a number of times, especially at first until I figured out what the stream level had to be for it to work. I was fortunate that the hose I was using had an on-off toggle on the hose itself, it would have been much more troublesome if I had had to keep running back to the water outlet on the house to reactivate it.

* From looking at the part on the nozzle that switches it between water-only and "mix" (water + stain), it seems like it is supposed to allow the water from the hoze to stream into the stain bottle, and the pressure flowing through the stain in the container will force the now-mixed solution out of the nozzle and onto the fence. Unfortunately, because of the above problem with the nozzle being sensitive to water pressure, this doesn't work as planned. I think they need to add one line to their instructions, namely that to get the stain mix to work, you need to hold the container upside-down. This allows the stain in the container to flow downward, where it meets the stream from the hose and does mix.

* I seriously doubt this thing is environmentally friendly. Because the effect is basically splashing the stain onto the fence via a pressurized water-based mix, there's a lot of the stuff that will stream off onto the ground. Its one of the prices you pay for not putting the stain on by hand. I doubt many people will be growing vegetables along their fence, but if you are, this product is probably not a great idea.

* As other reviews have mentioned, this does apply the stain in a fairly messy way. You almost certainly will get stain onto your clothes and yourself, especially while you're learning how to use the thing, so plan accordingly. It doesn't apply smoothly - the effect is much more like taking a small bucket of stain and splashing it at the fence, rather than the smooth application their demo video shows. There is also considerable leakage from the bottle when it is tipped upside down to work: both bottles I used had the instructions on the back obliterated by leaking stain while in use.

I've put a couple of comparison pictures up at Flickr for you to look at, here and here (also shown above). Click on "All Sizes" to view them fullsize.

Overall, would I use this product again? Surprisingly, yes I would. It did not operate as advertised, but once I figured out how to get around its flaws, it did in fact stain the fence as it was supposed to. It did save a ton of time compared to hand-staining, and I would never have been able to apply the stain in the time I had before winter if 5MFS wasn't available.