Clean and stain siding?

A long time friend, she has a friend, who needs one side of her house cleaned and stained. I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve done decks. Never siding.

Plan on cleaning with a sodium hydroxide solution. Neutralize with oxalic. They have requested that I use Benjamin Moore alkyd semi solid stain because that is whats on the rest of the house.

What would you charge for just this side of the house? I generally wouldn’t do just one side of the house but I’m trying to be nice. Its not because they are cheap. The husband is disabled with parkinsons disease. They don’t have money to just throw around. The rest of the house is in good condition and they understand that it’s not going to just match the rest of the house. I understand if any of you don’t like to disclose their prices to their competitors, so if i’m way outside of your area, and you don’t feel comfortable disclosing your prices, could you pm me?

Does sodium hydroxide kill algae, mold and mildew like sodium hypo?

Any tips, tricks, thoughts?

Sodium hydroxide is very caustic (lye) can be used as a stripper but you need to be careful. If this just needs cleaning go with a sodium per carbonate type cleaner.

I’ll be restaining with a semi transparent stain so i figure that I need to do a good job getting as much off as I could. Do you think that just cleaning it is ok? The stain is the same color.

Are you cleaning or stripping? If stripping what type of stain is on the house now? Is the stain you are planning to use compatible with what is on the house now?

Strip it if your going to restain is with a semitransparent stain. You don’t show tue complete side of the house that is part of what your talking about but the house looks fairly big from the backside alone. Is that Clapboard siding redwood cause it looks like it. There not hard to strip just don’t over do it on the sodium hydroxide because the wood will fur easily and same goes with the pressure.

When we do semitransparent we don’t spray because it can be uneven so we do them with a brush and you have to follow the clapboard to an end where it doesn’t continue anymore because you do not want to have overlaps from stain drying. This will be a bit time consuming staining this house so without seeing the whole other side of the house I would say you should get in the neighborhood of $3000+ to strip half that house and then re-stain it with a semi transparent stain. The stain materials would be extra on top of your labor charge. If you wanted to lower your labor price I wouldn’t go much lower then $2500 because of the time factor on brushing a house. 3 guys would be perfect for the staining part but if it’s just you alone your looking at a couple of days at least to hand brush those 2 sides.

Good luck

The stain that’s on the house is Benjamin Moore alkyd semi. They want the same stuff applied. I wanted to strip to give it a good uniform color

thanks for all the info john

hey john. i was planning on picking up some sodium hydroxide directly from my local chemical distributor. i plan on downstreaming the sodium hydroxide, how much should i mix per gallon?

also, do you recommend that i mask off the glass?

sodium hydroxide or f-18?

if f-18 how quick do they usually ship by?

F18 Bob usually ships the same day. I usually receive my orders within 48 hrs

Hey Tim-- we don’t down stream. Years ago I never liked the ratio’s of cleaning chemicals to water when down streaming because they were generally to week. Also when down streaming I use to corrode the quick connects, the hoses, my wands etc due to chlorine runnig thru them so we went to X-Jetting probably 12-13 yrs ago. Today we x-jet most chemicals.

We don’t strip solids or semi solids so everything else we can use the X-jet. We also only use 4gpm PW’s most times when x-jetting chemicals so the ratio you can get on a house is 33% of your cleaning chemicals. With that said I would make your stripper at full strength. Wet one side of the house away from the sun real good. Then spray the stripper bottom up. Then wet windows again and rinse gardens down real good. After that I might hit the side of the house a second time with the stripper. Then wet again the windows and foolage again. Always keep windows and plant life wet. Really rinse the surrounding area good. By the time your done with that from the first splash with the stripper to the second splash and the rinsing your probably at 20 minutes dwell time so I would now start Powerwashing the siding top down.

If your going to downstream I’m not sure anymore what the ratio’s are when your drawing the stripper. You may have to do a search on that here or on some other bb’s to get that answer. As for masking windows while stripping we never do that. Keep them wet and rinse them well before and after stripping is complete and same goes when you apply the brightener/neutralizer. We only mask windows when we stain.
Good luck–

before…stripped… neutralized…drying

painted the trim today, staining tomorrow.





not too shabby



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Hey Tim- it looks like you might have need some surfactant in with the stripper to get it to stay in the house more when you applied it. Also it looks like you could have used a little more brightener to bring the wood PH back a little more where the wood is a little brighter. But since the house was re-stained with a very similar color if not the same as the original… All in all it looks very good. Nice job;)

Surfactant and stripper, good tip! That would have helped, would simple cherry or fresh wash cut it?
I was a little nervous about it not being neutralized all the way so It was actually neutralize twice. And yeah, they had kept an old can for years so I was able to get it matched, I also stored all of the info in my computer, just in case i ever have to work for her again.

Thanks for all of the help everyone!