Deck Cleaning 101

Looks awesome. Mind sharing the details on the “pressure rinse” part? Like did you hit it with the 40 degree tip 6-8” away or something else?

1 Like

Great job! I’ll bet that trigger hand is humming after that.

1 Like

Looks good Gunny. Definitely agree with William, heck of a deck to break in on.

Could you tell much difference in it after you applied the Ox? I typically don’t if it’s just a wash and I’m not going strong on the mix.

1 Like

Ya know, it took a while to begin seeing it brighten up. I was wondering if maybe I did something wrong lol. I think cleaning it did almost as much even before the ox, but after looking at it a while it did help it along

What was your Ox ratio?

1 Like

Best I can remember I added about a quart of dry OA to a 4 gal backpack sprayer… :thinking:

That’s about the ratio I use. Regardless, the deck turned out great and it’s hard to get the full effect when the wood is still wet. If you really want to inspect your work I’d go back a couple days later and it should look even better when dry.

1 Like

BradenC. yes thats pretty much it… After the wetdown I applied a house-wash mix (with sodium hydroxide) then used a wide pattern at a consistent 6"-ish distance. After that applied the Ox mix and waited … then rinsed and rinsed … I basically did the EXACT method Rick used in the original post on this thread. *This is unsealed pressure treated pine so take that into consideration !

1 Like

Congrats on the baby. Glad I could be helpful.

That is the whole point of this. There are many people who no longer post on here that helped me out. This forum is like a double edged sword, it is great information for free, but it also sets up everyone with 900 dollars or a CC to get into the business. I have a new competitor in every single town now and I live in a rural area. Needless to say, the market cannot support that many washers in a rural area so some will die. I don’t care, I’m only PT and I have other revenue. They can fight over nickels on splash and dash, I’ll take the money on wood.

2 Likes

Hey guys! Did a fence today. While I’m pretty satisfied I did get some spray through onto the backside thru the slats (neighbor side). Is there a way to avoid this? Assuming you don’t have access to the other side to pre-wet/rinse after the SH/OX process.


Don’t worry about it.

1 Like

Where are the after pics? Exactly what did you do? Did you rinse and with what psi?

See Gunny’s post right above. Your’s and his very similar before - his very different after

1 Like

I think his after pic is dry and you can see the furring, whereas I think gunny’s after pic is wet which gives that optical illusion and makes it seem nicer. It is hard to tell on the pics, but I think he removed a lot of the decaying wood. Looks like it needs to dry a bit more and pump the stain into it.

1 Like

He said he’d done today, if it had been 6 months would have expected. The side you saying is furred is the backside he didn’t clean. That’s just old wood. I’ve never seen one that didn’t look like that after a few years, heck make that 6 months with the quality of wood we get now a days.
About 90% of the new fences I see are rough sawed like that. If you stained a brand new board grey, that’s exactly what it looks like.

1 Like

@Racer @Dirtyboy yea the first pic was the backside of the fence, that’s never been touched before. In the two pics next to each other are the before and after. And yes it’s completely dry. But good eye Rick because I didn’t “high pressure rinse” in the 1000-1500 range because the wood just couldn’t take it. It’s in rough shape and started splitting, so instead of using the long wand I had and the 40 degree tip I had set at 1200 psi I used the M5 at about 700 psi, really just soft washed and pump sprayed the OX. Rinse - SH/sodium hydroxide - rinse - OX- rinse

Just to add, here’s a photo of the fence a few minutes after rinsing off the OX, still a little wet

1 Like

I never worry about furring the wood on fences much. Was looking at a house today and guy had a fence put up and stained about 6 months ago. Pretty typically of what we see around here on fences wood quality wise. Decks a little different.




2 Likes

Yep…see that too.

If you look at a piece of wood and you see silver/grey, that is decaying wood. The chemicals pulp the wood and the pressure removes that pulp. Without both you should be mechanically removing if you are “restoring” the wood. If you aren’t doing wood restoration, then clean/neutralize and pump it full of oil/paint it once dry (using a moisture meter). If you cleaned or restored a piece of wood, when it dries if you see white hairs that is furring. Oil will go through furring.

2 Likes