I thought maybe it would help lift out the stain better?
Just clean it with whatever your heart desires and then strip it with the hydroxide. No need to rush things by trying to mix up a magical concoction.
Sodium Percarbonate is more for organics. It just a lot more mild than bleach but also doesn’t clean as well. It can be a good choice to use on certain decks because the wood won’t fuzz as much when compared to sh. It won’t do anything as far as helping lift the stain, though. I’d just use sodium or potassium hydroxide and some surfactant. I know it has been mentioned a few times but watch that painted metal.
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What is the stripper called? I would like to learn more about this product. TIA
Deck Restoration Plus Stripper
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I cleaned this with sodium metasilicate/ hydroxide Everett sells. Is that green between the X’s pressure treatment or alage I didn’t remove? I enede up brushing most of the deck becuaenafter coming through with 1000psi some green was left behind. I would go across board again slower and it would remove more. Ultimately brushing right before the rinse helped.
To get rid of outdoor Matt shadow, only thing you can do is sand?
Wood was atleast 6 years old never been cleaned.
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Thanks for posting this. It takes some stones to post a job and let everyone monday morning quarterback you.
My questions are these:
- What was your dwell time? Sometimes you have to let things dwell a lot longer if the deck is bad. everett talks about letting things dwell for a long time. An untreated deck after 6 years is going to take some cleaning.
- When you walked the boards, did you keep the gun/lance the same distance from the boards the whole way?
- Was the surface like an ice skating rink when cleaning/brushing? Im my estimation it gets slick when the crap is coming off. In the first pic I see a lot of the crap on the deck (footprints) coming off, but that isn’t all of it.
I apply the stripper, let it dwell, then do a scuff test with the toe of my shoe to see if it is coming up or not . If it isn’t I know I am going to brush and reapply. Even the scuff test isn’t perfect, you do a rinse then see areas the stripper didn’t work on, so then you reapply and brush again if needed, then rinse again. This forum reads like magic sometimes and would lead to the impression apply stripper, rinse, apply neutralizer, rinse, collect check. It doesn’t really work that way many times.
My experience is that you won’t get a mat stain out, but you can lessen it. That should be in your initial discussion with the homeowner. Set expectations as they say. If you painted/stained the deck afterwards it would really be almost unnoticeable, but with just cleaning it, well, your going to see it. Sure you can sand it, then you have to blend it into the existing wood or you will have a reverse mat look.
If they had some type of covering, let’s say an umbrella or table and chairs, that section of wood would see less light and be more green than the others. I’m leaning towards it being green from the runoff from that roof though, but I am not there. (no gutter above deck = tons more crap to remove).
Good luck to you and hit up @SurfaceTherapy or @MDA1775 they do a lot of decks and have been extremely helpful to me with my last monster deck (3 levels over 4k sq ft).
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Good God that would be a hell of a deck.
Dwell time was about 10-12 minutes. Wand was a close to the same as you could get across the boards.
It was not super slick if I can recall. But when I hit it with a brush it looked like baby food. It was goopy for sure
To me it came out pretty damn good, just seeing what I could do better
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Ok, the next time you get a deck like that one try increasing the dwell time to 15 minutes (not letting it dry of course). For as bad as the deck was, you were likely going to have to brush it. Everett talks about the distinction between stripping and cleaning. Stripping (depending on variables) has a much longer dwell time. If stuff is coming up, generally speaking, it isn’t clean.
Did you mask those posts and door? Hydroxide will strip paint. I’m cautious with stripper, I can paint but I don’t want to repaint stuff I am not getting paid for.
I don’t want you to think I am knocking your work, I was just giving feedback from my point of view.
Edit: Maybe upsell a stain or paint job (if your into that) or make a referral to another company. Decks should have a coating on them. THe type of coating varies depending on customer’s desires.
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I planned on staining it but getting low temps at night. Good to know on the brushing and dwell time.
I kept the walls wet when I did it… no damage
Pre wet, cautiously spray against house and hen wet the walls again
But they were repainting that side of house anyways so I did it as a test spot.
Did you brighten that deck after using metasilicate?
How low at night? Your handle is southeast, so I am guessing high 40’s which would be ok. We are getting a heat wave tomorrow, going to hit 52, then back to a week highly of 41 with lows in the 20’s. At least we aren’t in Canada 
Yes part of that picture shows an area I had not hit with brightener
I’m in coastal North Carolina, it’s been getting into the low 30s and down to 29 the other night.
Big thing is they want to wait on the painter to paint that side. So whenever he’s happy with temps
What is your process for removing Thompson’s WaterSeal.I have some condominiums that the builder used TWS on all the decks.Thanks
How long has it been on there and and how much has it faded would be my first question. I have had good luck (relative term sometimes when removing TWS) using Deck Restoration Plus (DRP). It’s sodium hydroxide, sodium metasilicate and butyl. You are going to need the butyl to boost the sodium hydroxide and I prefer to not mix chems anymore if I can help it. You are going to have to go back with either oxalic or citric acid to neutralize after it is striped. DRP is supposed to be coming out with some type of super stripper this spring for the really stubborn water based products.
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Thanks @MDA1775 for getting back.I am in Canada so no DRP up here but I will look for a similar product up here.
DRP is out of NJ, IDK if they can or will ship to Canada. You mix it yourself. You need Sodium Hydroxide and Butyl (the sodium metasilicate you can probably get away with not using it). In fact depending on how broken down the TWS is you might try just using the Hydroxide. If you have to go strong with the chems, it will probably fur the wood so figure sanding into the bid as an if than it will be xx.xx more. Orbital floor sanders make short work of it and don’t have the potential problems that a belt sander does, if you have not used one much.
Practicing my deck stripping skills so I can add that to my inventory. This is on my own deck. Its 20+ years old and the stain is 5+. I started with 8 oz of f18 to 1 gal water in pump sprayer, let dwell for 10-15 mins, then washed at 1200 psi. Didnt get much stain off at all. Applied again at 10 oz, same process. Applied 3rd time with 12 ox and half cup of SH and had best success though still not great at all. First 2 pics show area I was working on and last shows area I havent started. Noticed where the stain was already pealing up it worked pretty well but where it was solid in hardly worked at all. Applied f8 at end of it all. Any recommendations to help remove stain in spots its not budging. Should I just keep upping the f18 concentration? Also what are recommendations for removing stain from spindles? Like I said this is my house and likely will apply same stain but want to practice completely striping decks. No clue what stain was used but from my test it is oil based.
