I wish it was that way around here. 80% of mine are just cleaning. Get a fair amount that have been stained in past year or usually 4-5 years and they just want mildew and light dirt cleaned off.
Here’s one just did couple of weeks ago, guy selling house and just wanted it cleaned and it still had remnants of 5 year old stain showing. Still had to hit every board and every picket.
There’s your problem, you make it look too good without stain…
Impressive Rick.
I can go with that as well. I swear there wasn’t a picture when I replied to this yesterday. I must be getting old.
As you know it’ll fade back in 2-3 years to the weathered gray look, but most are fine with that as long as not nasty looking. 99% of the homes here have decks and bet at least 60% have never seen a drop of stain. A lot of people think a deck stain is a once in a lifetime thing and until you educate them that they take regular upkeep they’ll keep thinking that.
Of course when you give them the price for cleaning a real nasty one and staining, most will decide to just clean it, if that. LOL
I don’t think people in my area like really stain decks either. Heck most don’t even seem to want me to clean them. I did clean one last year am I’m pretty proud of the results. Everyone thought it had to be replaced.
We don’t have the elevation changes in most of my AO that are usually associated with wood decks. It’s mostly concrete, stone etc of some type. They do love their pergolas though and I hate doing them so I charge stupid amounts so at least I’m grumbling about it with a full wallet. I can do three fences in the time it takes to do one pergola.
Hey Everyone, soo I’m just looking into wood restoration for this year. Been doing lots of research lately and took Everett Abrams class at the pwna. Still have a lot of questions. Is it really not a good idea to use high pressure on decks instead of all these chemicals?
F18 is pretty expensive 10lb for $50. I can get 20lb of sodium hydroxide for $8 is that the same thing or how is the f18 better? Same with the f8 vs oxalic acid?
Any help is appreciated Thanks!
Yes, it’s really not a good idea to use high pressure. Read the msds sheets on the above products and then make your decision.
Just wondering if anyone has experience using the raw chemicals vs f18 or others … i did read the msds sheets for f18 it’s basically sh plus a surfactant and sodium carbonate which is basically the same as SH… I’d love to do some experiments with it but we have a foot of snow
Just started last year using this stuff called renewal from south side equipment. Its easy and simple to mix and worked great.
WHAT??? WHAT??? No, no it isn’t. Sodium Carbonate a.k.a. Soda Ash…dude…not even close!
perhaps you meant to say Sodium PERcarbonate? In which case, NOPE! It’s kind of sort of similar to hydrogen peroxide when you add water, but even then it’s a stretch. And Hydrogen peroxide is NOT “basically the same as bleach”…unless you mean it will work the same if you add it to the surface 10+ times and then it still doesn’t do as good of a job.
Grrrrrr…in the future, if you have a chemical question please someone @CaCO3Girl me…soda ash is NOT the same as SH…shudder…yes, struck a nerve…sorry to be so blunt…but those “PER”, “ITE”, “ATE”, “IDE”, and other such prefixes and suffixes mean something and I don’t want you guys to get yourself in trouble 
Sorry by sh i meant sodium hydroxide… i thought i read when sodium carbonate is mixed with water it turns into sodium hydroxide
-When you are talking on a PW site SH is always Sodium Hypochlorite.
-If you want to shorthand sodium hydroxide it can be done with a NaOH.
-Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is alkaline, but it is not nearly as alkaline as a caustic soda bead. The exact ratio is 1% caustic soda bead = 1.04% alkalinity; 1% soda ash = 0.44% alkalinity.
-pH of caustic soda in water = 13.5-14
-pH of soda ash in water = 11-11.5
Alkalinity isn’t the only issue though. You can ship a truck load of soda ash and it goes as non regulated. You ship 3 pounds of caustic soda beads, or sodium hydroxide 50% (caustic soda 50%) and it has to be shipped as a full blown hazmat item. Under 3 pounds has to ship as a limited quantity…but it’s still a regulated material when you attempt to ship even a gram.
If you go to GHS pictograms, soda ash gets a measly exclamation point for being an irritant. Caustic soda gets the full blown corrosive pictogram, because it can eat your skin off.
I actually tell people to neutralize caustic soda with soda ash or baking soda.
So, no, they are not the same.
As a P.S. to anyone…if you @caco3girl or send me a private message I will get back to you. This site is delivered to my personal email, so even on the weekends, I’m happy to help :- )
The chemical information out there is mostly good…but some of it is very bad and it can get you in trouble. Please double and triple check any assumptions you guys have about chemicals. Better safe than sorry.
@CaCO3Girl how much are we paying you? You need a raise
Lol! Happy to help.
This looks exactly like one I just did that ended up pretty white. Customer said it looked like the stain came off. What percentage did you use? Was it sh? How long did you dwell for? It looks great by the way!
Everett from deck Restoration Plus said in a video where he demonstrated sh, s percarbonate, sodium metasilicate and one other chemical that the metasilicate is the best to use on wood. Would you agree with that? If so, Would that be the best to use on both stained and untreated wood decks?
What happened is that the chemicals dwelled to long you already know that it turned the wood white or grey so the stain looks lighter now or the stain color is more dilated in the wood fiber. The best thing for you to do is re stain the deck and move on. I’m sure part of it was a crappy stain job or cheap stain the got single coated.
