I have sodium hypochlorite and fresh wash for house washing. Would that work on this deck or do I need sodium hydroxide? I’m not restoring it, just washing (soft wash was mentioned by owner). Thanks Uploading…
My picture isn’t uploading, sorry here’s a link
Drod55,
Not sure of your housewash SH concentration. For exterior wood, 1.5 - 2% is more that enough to kill mold/mildew. Add a bit of soap as a surfactant and cleaner. You can use reasonable pressure on what appears to be pressure treated wood, too much is immediately obvious.
Cool thanks. Is ecover ok for soap?
Drod55,
Got me. Took a quick look at their website and did not see any MSDS specs. You do want to avoid ammonia when mixing with SH. It may be a bit overblown, but the possibility of chlorine gas mixing the two is something to be avoided for you and your help.
Dawn dish detergent (non-ammonia), a few good squirts per gal., works fine for wood.
I really appreciate your help
I ended up using 1 gal pool shock (10% SH) and 1 gal water. Added a little fresh wash and a few squirts of ecover. I downstreamed using an mjet on a lower powered pressure washer, maybe 2.5 gpm. Actually, first i downstreamed an old mix of SH and freshwash I poured back into a bottle. Can you do that? Won’t SH lose its potency once exposed to air? Anyway, I wanted to make use of it. Then I downstreamed another 1:1 mix, let it dwell around 10 minutes then rinsed real well. I kept seeing suds. I guess that’s normal. Here’s a photo as I rinsed a rail https://goo.gl/photos/SSkfuCkzKrLiFtAd7
Main thing was the customer was very happy and it took me an hour.
