Complete paint removal

1

Is there a way to completely remove paint from a wood porch/deck without damaging the wood.

A friend has a porch he said he’d like, if possible, to remove the paint and get the wood down to a natural look. But I’m not sure how to remove every bit of paint the way he is hoping it will look.

Are there any chemicals you’d recommend?

I know you can use a pressure washer on wood but you have to keep PSI low. I have a tip that will give me 800 psi. I tested an area on my back porch for paint removal with the PW. I had to use the yellow tip. It removed the paint but, obviously, it damaged the wood.

I’m not sure about using the yellow tip and then renting a floor sander from Home Depot to smith it down. Would that work? I’m just trying to figure it out.

2

Tell your friend to call a professional. Most give free quotes. You can be there when they show up and learn a lot. Then if your friend wants to proceed with their quote you can come over and watch and maybe even ask some questions to learn even more.

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3

I have seen a product that I am currently watching YouTube about. It is called Diamabrush. It seems to work great. I’m not opposed to the manual labor part but he would need to be told it may leave swirl marks.

I’d love to do the deck for him but I don’t see it being something that I’d want to take in in the future with customers.

Depending on the review, I may give it a try. I could always use it on my back porch as well, if it is still usable.

I’m gonna keep watching this video to see how this product works.

4

Diamabrush could do it. But it’s long, nasty work.

if you go the chem route, you want to be aware of your surroundings. The chems can damage things pretty quickly.

5

Hey as a dovetail to the discussion…

I get increasing number of calls to ‘blast off’ loose paint from houses so the owner can repaint. I’ve done a couple small areas but people keep asking for larger jobs and I just don’t feel it’s a good idea to spread old paint flakes all over their yard.

Is this something washers are expected to offer as a service?

6

I wouldn’t let old paint flakes in the yard detour you from taking those jobs.

Just let the customer know they’ll see them on the ground for awhile and that you don’t clean them up.

7

Where’s he going?

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8

lol. whoops! “deter”

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9

I’ve done it. residential and comercial. i use a #50, or higher, Ill have to look, it may be #80. or orifice for 8gpm using my 5.5gpm.

10

I once had a boss that refused to accept that he’d been saying deter wrong his entire life. Made for a good back and forth lol

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11

10-4.

One job had me doing a 1 story HW with tons of fallout, I was ‘informed’ he expected me to blast off all the 50yo paint from the detached garage as well, which was a bit of a shock to me.

Another one was a small business building and a 10x20 section was flaking badly so I did do that one but had to sweep up the mess.

12

I’d think on concrete, you’d want to get it in the grass or sweep it up.

13

Yeah that’s what I had to do on that commercial building, took a while. He was really appreciative though and I got another building and his house.

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