A Deck Maintenance Tool You Didn’t Even Know You Needed

A Deck Maintenance Tool You Didn’t Even Know You Needed A Deck Maintenance Tool You Didn’t Even Know You Needed

Outdoor maintenance is hard enough with all the grass to be mowed, trees and shrubs to be trimmed, flowerbeds to be weeded, and leaves to be blown. There are a variety of options to make all of these jobs easier. One thing that I haven’t seen before, though, is a handy tool that will save my butter knives from a life of hard labor.

Let me explain. You’ve got a deck, right? You actually use that deck. And, if you’re anything like me, you might be a bit clumsy, butterfingered, ham-fisted. You drop stuff, okay? Like, more than the average person. And those small dropped items inevitably drop right square in the cracks between boards.

Sometimes, it’s an item large enough it doesn’t fall through the cracks or get wedged in them. The space between deck boards on my deck isn’t very large, so it’s rare I flat out lose an item forever.

But, I’ve had my fair share of things like pens, straws and other items get caught in there. Here’s where the butter knife comes in, because that’s what I typically grab to pry out the pens, straws, leaves, cat treats or whatever is wedged in those cracks.

My butter knives can rest in peace now. There’s a new tool in town to do the dirty work — The DeckTool. Simple name, simple purpose … where the heck has this thing been all my life?

Of course, I had to try it out right away as soon as I unpackaged it. We have these little things that drop from the trees in our wooded yard. They look like wings and twirl as they float to the ground. I don’t know what they’re called, and I don’t care. If you do and would like to comment to let me know, then I thank you. But, it wouldn’t change how annoying they are when they wedge in the cracks of the deck boards.

Two seconds. That’s how long it took to hook The DeckTool underneath one of those floating menaces and yank it out.

Then, I took it to the other end of the deck where my son takes the trash bags from the mud room out to the trash cans. Last week, I guess the dogs had chewed a small hole in a bag before he’d gotten around to taking them out and I hadn’t noticed it or double-bagged it.

Five seconds. There were several places where some baked beans had fallen from the hole in the trash bag —- OF COURSE they fell into the cracks of the deck boards. I mean, why on earth would they do something sensible and logical like falling in the middle of the boards where they could easily be wiped up?!

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Even better than being fast, The DeckTool has a long handle like a broom. So, you don’t have to crouch to use it. You can be standing up if you prefer. Also, the alloy heat treated stainless steel blade is thin (thinner than a dime) so it will fit easily and comes with a blade cover to protect you from getting scraped by the blade grooves when you grab it from storage to use it.

It’s easy to store anywhere you have a small space to stick it. I have a tall laundry basket in my mudroom where I store brooms, a dustpan, and a few other tall cleaning tools. But, if you’re fancy and have one of those strips mounted to the wall in your mudroom, hallway, or garage to hang these things, it would hang there with ease, too.

If where it’s made is important to you, you can rest easy with this Made in the USA product. The blades are manufactured in Pennsylvania; assembly of the blades to the handles is done in Georgia. And shipping is free in the continental U.S. 

This is a very affordable and useful item to purchase for use at your own home, if you own a landscaping business, or to gift to someone you know who loves working outdoors.

I’ll bet it would be useful, also, for dislodging the nests that wasps like to build up in the top of our deck ceiling. My husband will probably find a dozen ways to use it around our property and I will happily let him!

Who do you know that would love the ease and convenience of The DeckTool?