This is my own deck that was VERY filthy. I used dawn soap and 12% bleach. Why is it greyish looking? Do I need to balance it with brightener?? I’m going to stain it next weekend.
Did you hit it with some pressure or just try and rinse it?
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Looks almost like you used too strong of a soap mix. How much bleach to water did you use?
Hire a contractor that doesn’t use dawn or bleach on pressure treated wood.
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As @MuscleMyHustle was leading to you have to use about 1000 psi over every square inch of the deck to remove the dead layer of wood. Start at one end of the board and continually wash from one end to the other without stopping. Stopping can cause lines to show.
Ditch the Dawn completely. It’s a degreaser. If you use it in your house wash mix too there’s a good chance you’ll eventually run into issues. It can disturb oxidation and then you’re stuck brushing the whole house.
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I guess I didn’t use enough pressure, even though I hit it pretty well I thought. I’m an old school painter and most of us old school painters use straight power instead of soft washing. I am trying to get my head around soft washing because I believe in the soft washing process. I know for a fact that it is far easier on various surfaces versus straight power washing.
I first mixed my bleach 50/50 with water/bleach. Then I downstreamed it on the deck but it didn’t seem to clean like I thought it should. I then went straight bleach through the downstreamer and this is what I got. It’ll still stain up nice.
Down streaming doesn’t put out a very strong mix. Although, you don’t want a real strong mix on wood anyways. The SH is just to kill the algae and mildew. On really bad decks you might need to use about 2%. You have to be careful though because the stronger the SH the more the wood can fuzz. You still have to pressure wash it with around 1000 psi. Use the nozzle chart to get the appropriate nozzle for your machine. Then, keep your wand close enough to where you’re only covering the width of one board. Go from one end to the other without stopping. You can tell from the picture that you didn’t strip the layer of dead wood off it it so weren’t using enough pressure or just had your wand too far back. Decks don’t really get that clean from soft washing because it doesn’t remove that dead wood. You can soft wash newer wood and sometimes get decent results.
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I thought Downstreaming was the preferred method?
It is the preferred method. Decks are 20% chemical application and 80% knowing what the wand is doing. Picture it like a spray gun, you need to hit every angle uniformly to get a uniform result.
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Yes.
Re-clean it with the info above. Then once you’ve cleaned the deck and rinsed it off, then apply the oxalic acid. Let dwell for 10 minutes. Then rinse. If this is going to be the only wood you do for awhile, just buy a bottle from Sherwin Williams or Lowe’s that is pre-made and pre-mixed.
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