Hey all, we did a deck recently that was very dirty and neglected. She’s looking to restain it but was very unhappy with the results. There is green embeded in the wood that won’t come out. I went out to try again myself and couldn’t get it much better. I hit it with sodium hydroxide and bleach a few times and used pretty high pressure and post treated with oxalic. It doesn’t look too bad when it’s dry but she is still unhappy. I already discounted it $100 for her. Has anyone had any luck with this? Or what I can tell her is the cause.
I’m sure it’ll be fine after she restains it but if there is a way it better I’d like to make her happy.
One reason I hate doing decks. If it were me, I’d just give a full refund and move on. I know it sucks, but the season is still young and you’ll make it up elsewhere with better paying, easier work.
I was washing a roof yesterday that had a wooden privacy fence very close to it. Just the mist in the air brought out the green in the wood. I am trying to stay far away from wood.
TYP deck with some real worn out stain on it. Client just wanted cleaned. HW mix, twice with about 10min in between. 2 passes with surface cleaner at about 2400psi. Last pic is about 45min after doing. Not a bit of furring. Total time including having to hand cut in sides, which were a lot because of the perimeter step, about 25min.
If all wood jobs were flat with no railings I’d love wood lol. Until I run into issues like this last deck. This really hasn’t been an issue b4 it’s usually just a few spots if any that the green is embedded too deep that I can’t clean it. If bleach would work on it it would be clean by now lol I’m sure eventually it would but the wood would be ruined
I just spoke with her again and thankfully it sounds like she’s satisfied after my second go. I think she didn’t see it till after it dried this time so it looked decent.
A couple of years ago, one of my house flippers had a real POS deck. He said 'see if you can do anything with it, if not I’ll just tear it down and build a new one." So I figured, what the heck. It surprised me and him. since then I’ve done 6-7 like that, usually older ones that people don’t care about, they just want cleaned so they don’t break their neck on the slime when wet.
Have never furred one yet. Cleans them great, gets between the boards and all. I’ve come to believe that too much chemical is a bigger problem than pressure in regards to furring them.
The worse that can happen is you may need to lightly sand it, but realistically the ones I’ve tried it on, the people wouldn’t have cared or even noticed if I had.
Used to use surface cleaners on decks when I worked for a guy. Most came out really good, some furred like crazy though.
Haven’t tried it with chems and stuff though
@racer - what ~PSI is your SC running ? I’ve also heard guys here tell me they use them on decks with success - they start out with it at an angle and make sure to keep moving.
