Sorry I’m just seeing this now, don’t forget to put a @ in front of the person’s name that you are talking to if you aren’t directly replying to there comment or thread. You can get oxalic, citric acid, sodium hydroxide, and sodium percarbonate off amazon.ca if you can’t find a local chemical distributor. SH can be found anywhere from local pool stores to Canadian Tire. Degreasers like zep purple can be found at any hardware store and you can get EBC at Sherwin Williams. If they don’t carry it ask them. If they aren’t capable of doing so, send EBC an email and they’ll contact the store and get you set up. The only thing that we aren’t able to buy in Canada are surfactants for house washing. Some people use EBC as a surfactant but I wouldn’t use it for house washing because it’s a degreaser and it has no scent. I don’t feel comfortable using a degreaser as a surfactant to wash houses due to oxidation.
Thanks @anon37135677 will do
I know, a month later.
I have been approached several times to ‘clean’ decks, only to discover they have old deck paint flaking off or worn out blotchy stain. So far I’ve been turning these down, and informed the customer that I just have no way to remove this residue. It’s the ‘thing’ to do here, paint decks.
Is there some way to safely remove the junk with our methods or is it a job for someone with a sander?
Stripping anything is normally never worth it unless your hard pressed for work. I tell my customers it’s best that who ever stains/paints it does there own prep work and i can maintain it at later dates with the cleaning.
Deck stripping so easy. I use a chemical call xxx deck stripper. But what I have found is that the price to strip and stain decks varies greatly depending on your location in northern Va you can get 2500-3000 for your typical 16x16 deck. That same deck 100 miles south will only bring you around 1200. I do alot of them and I’m not hurting for work by any standard. You gotta figure out what that kinda work is worth in your area
Several companies make and sell deck strippers, most of them are lye with a bit of surfactant added to act as a wetting agent. They all work to a degree but even with them stripping a deck can turn into a lot of work. You have to keep the stripper and the spatter off ANYTHING you dont want damaged, let it work, then hope it removes the coating fully and evenly… which usually doesn’t happen, so you have to do it again in the spots that dont come up. Even after all this they are still going to have to go back with a solid color stain or paint because your never going to get everything up.
This is a family forum Anthony 
.
All kidding aside, How fast does it work ?
Your one to talk! In the last thread you were talking about employees up your crack… all I got to say is that’s a level of motivation that’s hard to instill in an employee…
Apply wait let dwell 15-20 hot water rinse. Repeat if necessary normally 2 applications will get even the thicker deck over stuff off. They make it in a past version that’s super strong but that stuff scares me
@Firefighter4hire Do you have a link to where you get that stuff?
As mentioned a lot of strippers are sodium hydroxide based. You can get 50 lbs for pretty cheap. Just mix about 8-12 oz per gallon of water. If you want to remove all the paint or stain plan on having to sand in some spots. The Wood Guru @MDA1775 came up with a great idea of wrapping sandpaper around a Sawzall blade to get in between the deck boards.
Before deciding on anything always test to figure out if it’s waterborne or oil based. Put a little denatured alcohol on a white rag and rub it on the coating. If you see color on the rag it’s waterborne. I’ve never stripped oil based but I’m sure it’s a lot more difficult to get up. Even once you figure out what the coating is I’d get some stripping and do a small test area before giving an estimate.
You talk about cheaper prices in Louisville or people just wanting to do things on their own @dcbrock. Keep in mind stripping can be time consuming so you’re going to want to be up there in price. Not too mention the cleanup from the gooey, messy paint chips from waterborne paints. They basically turn into slime.
I get 90% of my chemicals from pressure works. I’m not saying other suppliers dont sell good or the same stuff in a different bottle with a different label but they have always been good to me and thier products have always been consistent. Yes they are a little more expensive.
Oh great Scott, there’s no way people here would pay $1200 to strip a small deck.
Guess I’ll just stick to washing them, thanks for the suggestions guys.
So yesterday I went back to that 550 square foot deck I cleaned in December. The stain was old and a lot of it came out. I used 2.5 gallons of sodium metasilicate from Deck Restoration Plus, (1 part sm to 4 parts water) applied it with battery sprayer, let it dwell half an hour and then used my 1000 psi tip to rinse off. Then I did an oxalic treatment, dwell 5 mins then rinse off. It took me 5.5 hours total (was harder work than just house washing). I also did 12 stairs, the all wood railing on the stairs and the railing around the deck, plus the 12” tall face boards around the perimeter of it. I did not stain it yet but it basically took me 1 hour per 100 square feet to strip and clean it again. Keep in mind I already cleaned it once with 2% sh and this was the one where it dwelled for 2 hours because I couldn’t keep up with my tech who applied it (was a section of a much larger wrap around deck). Idk if it saved me any time but the first time definitely removed a lot of the uv damaged stain. I told myself that I will be charging $4-$6 per square foot for the work if I start offering the service. Yesterday was basically a test run but so far so good! I remember you saying that you can only get .10/sf for concrete cleaning so if you can charge $3-$4/sf for this then start doing it to make some good money. In both my businesses if there’s jobs I really don’t want I turn them down by charging a lot. That way if someone still wants to do it at least I’ll be paid handsomely for the crap work. Here’s some completion photos:
![image|666x500]
I would not even think about stripping a deck for less than that. If there is no money to be made then there is no money to be made. I’m not sure why it is but I bet if more people chimed in about what it cost in the region they are in you will find the price is greatly different
That’s what I was going to recommend to @dcbrock too. No lower than at least $3 a sq/ft for the deck and $5 per linear foot for the railing. Of course that’s just a starting point. Depending on the coating or other factors that price can go up.
I used to live in NoVA, I totally get it…they can afford that kind of service. People here either attempt it themselves or let it rot, even the rich types.
Offer it as full wood restoration service. Get some good before and after pics. If someone is on the fence about it do one small board and do the full process on it. Then clean the one next to it and show them the difference. People sometimes need to see what it is they are spending money on. I’ve studied sales and learned that price isn’t really an issue (at least in many cases). It’s not that they won’t spend the money they just don’t want to spend it unless there is good value in it. Case in point I spent more than my budget on my home because I didn’t like what was available for what I thought I wanted to spend.
I would never live in northern va but it’s a gold mine
You know your area better than anyone else. But before you discount that price, get yourself a couple of quotes from painting contractors in your area to strip and paint a small deck. You might be shocked to see what they are asking. My mother, who in gods name knows why, got quotes for her deck to be repainted (not stained). She said she didn’t want to bother me. The only guy that responded, and she told me she called several, wanted 1200 to power wash it with water and then paint it - no sanding. Her deck is 12x12 with about 5 steps (6-10 run) and some lattice work on it around the bottom of the deck…
The kicker for me is I had her move from south jersey to live on my property in her own house just so when she needed stuff I would be there for her. Anyway, that guy didn’t get the job. I had about 15 dollars in materials and about another $100 in coating. home baked chocolate chip cookies are all the payment I needed. She insisted on getting the deck coating from @Greenman, er…I mean a blue paint store.
FWIW
