Home Brew Deck Cleaner/Stripper and Safe?

[fireandrain 39]

I ran out of some of my favorite "plant friendly" deck cleaner this week and found myself in the back of the truck digging through my 5'ers of chems trying to mix something up that would do a good job cleaning an old redwood deck that had some very old, gulp, BEHR solid on it in spots. I mixed up some Simple Cherry with a some straight Sodium Percarb.... pretty heavy on the percarb... Sprayed it on thick with my deckster and let it dwell a good 45 minutes. Did a bit of misting to keep it active and rinsed it with my .70 tip and it looked great!

Ive got some question that Id love some chatter on..

1. Can I mix some F-18 or HD-80 into that brew? Percarb/Simple Cherry/SH?

2. When Im working with straight percarb do I really need to be misting to keep it active? I ddo that with my caustics, but is it neccessary with a percarb?

Thanks!

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

My responses in Blue:

1. Can I mix some F-18 or HD-80 into that brew? Percarb/Simple Cherry/SH?

You probably can but keep in mind that upon doing so you become the manufacturer and are liable for any accidents, spills or injuries caused by your concoction. With that said, a certain percarb uses some stripping agents to make it work on a wider range of old finishes. Simple cherry is mostly surfactants and detergents which help with cleaning and removal. Bleach will only add to the mildew and algae killing power while only adding a modicum of reactivity to the removal of the finish.

2. When Im working with straight percarb do I really need to be misting to keep it active? I ddo that with my caustics, but is it neccessary with a percarb?

Wet product means it is active, dry is inactive and much like an employee leaning on a shovel, they are there but useless. One thing to keep in mind with chems in your dwell time is to keep it active where you need it to be and allow it to dry where you don't. This way you can control the activity and work on larger decks without much ill effects on the wood.

Thanks!

I tend to keep a percarb wet on thick areas of algae and not so much on mildew alone. 15 minutes of activity is sufficient for most applications and just because it isn't fizzing or foaming on the surface does not mean the process is complete. Do a scratch test to see if you get to bare wood. If not, apply more and allow to dwell another 5-10 minutes.

Another thing to think about is that if you are asking out of the need to save on chems, remember that they are the work force and the pressure washer is for rinsing, not the primary cleaner. Don't be frugal on the chems. Use what is necessary to complete the reaction so that you are not going back and reapplying after rinsing.

Rod!~

[plainpainter 217]

You know Rod - it never occured to me to let chems dry on the part of the deck that no longer needed dwell time. I think that's genius - as large decks are always frustrating

[RPetry 564]

Ditto here with Rod. We use a lot of sodium percarb cleaner for wood and do not worry about drying on the surface prior to rinsing.

Stripper is another story. As it drys it reverses the emulsion of the old stain you are trying to remove.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

I agree Rick..Yes stripping is another story. If old stuff has acrylic in it you for sure do not want to let it dry. The emulsion of acrylic goes back to a solid again.

If the old stuff is just dirt, dead gray, algae, mold, etc. it is probably fine to let dry as it won't have no grip no more.

Also as far as acrylics go in general, they'll emulisfy better if warm or hot water is used.

On concoctions of percarb..have had some success with using percarb and tsp together. Eats the acrylics in a slightly different fashion than the hydroxides. Best concoctions for complete removal I usually use are of potassium hydroxide and glycols.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Hey Rick,

I don't have that problem, which are you using for your stripper?

I find, all I have to do is re-wet with water and let sit for a few minutes till I am ready to start rinsing. This causes the chems to re-activate and bring the hardened sludge back into suspension.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Daniel, it was a side effect of working on full sun decks and it was happenstance that I stumbled onto the discovery that the chems stop working when dry and decided I can just leave it that way till I am ready. Controlling the reaction is not always easy to do but this is the best way I know of next to keeping in mind the application patterns most use and knowing where the heaviest applications will need more chem for longer dwell time.

Let me know how you do next time you try it, maybe we can come up with some rules of thumb (so to speak).

Rod!~

[fireandrain 39]

Thanks for all the input. I've used " a certain percarb" that has the stripper in it and I love it! Wasnt really trying to save $, although thats always a plus. It was more of a situation where I didnt have my "certain percarb with stripper" around and was left with the straight Sod.Percarb, and some simple cherry. I was mainly concerned with any sort of bad chemical reaction if I was to mix in some hd-80 or f-18. Im guessin from what everyone has said, that it'd be OK? I'm hoping I wouldnt have any bad fume issues,etc...

[RPetry 564]

Hey Rick,

I don't have that problem, which are you using for your stripper?

I find, all I have to do is re-wet with water and let sit for a few minutes till I am ready to start rinsing. This causes the chems to re-activate and bring the hardened sludge back into suspension.

Rod!~

Rod,

You are correct. Misting with water to re-wet NaOH generally works just fine on oil based semi-trans strip jobs. Its the heavy bodied solids and of course, acrylics that Kevin mentioned above that cause problems if the stripper dries out.

[RPetry 564]

Thanks for all the input. I've used " a certain percarb" that has the stripper in it and I love it! Wasnt really trying to save $, although thats always a plus. It was more of a situation where I didnt have my "certain percarb with stripper" around and was left with the straight Sod.Percarb, and some simple cherry. I was mainly concerned with any sort of bad chemical reaction if I was to mix in some hd-80 or f-18. Im guessin from what everyone has said, that it'd be OK? I'm hoping I wouldnt have any bad fume issues,etc...

Matt,

Years ago before we had a ready supplier of reasonably priced sodium percarb based wood cleaners, we used straight percarb to clean wood. Seemed to do the job just fine.

I'm sure the formulated percarb cleaners offer advantages of surfactants, soaps etc. to better clean wood, but to be honest, could not visually tell any difference.

[plainpainter 217]

I think Rick - if you threw in pure percarbs into your laundry wash - would it really clean your clothes? Or does the addition of a detergent better help the washing? I think wood is no different - it needs to be washed as well. Caustics such TSP or Sodium Metasilicate are more detergent 'builders' in that they aid the detergency of your 'soap'. And as well - since they are elevated in ph - they help break apart old finishes.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I think Rick - if you threw in pure percarbs into your laundry wash - would it really clean your clothes? Or does the addition of a detergent better help the washing? I think wood is no different - it needs to be washed as well. Caustics such TSP or Sodium Metasilicate are more detergent 'builders' in that they aid the detergency of your 'soap'. And as well - since they are elevated in ph - they help break apart old finishes.

I've got news for you, I used a strong mix of plain sodium percarbonate last year to get the tacky tux off our deck. It will, in a strong enough concentration, strip all by itself. I also used it in a weaker solution over the summer to clean stains around planters from leafs, and flower debris, and some mildew. It works great. Will percarbs clean your clothes? Yes. Sure you can mix it with other things, but sometimes you only need it to do so much. Depends on the job.

Beth

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Yup lots can be involved in building cleaning power, emulsifying power, suspension power, rinse power, conditioning power,etc. into a laundry mix or any other mix but yes many times a single product such as percarb in proper strength can do the basic task of cleaning/removal all on its own if given chance...

btw, I do also luv the idea what Rod says about letting the chem dry when further power is not needed as it should keep the good wood intact better with less defurring/sanding issues. It for sure applies to all the jobs that are not real goopey solids or the 100% synthetics. For most part the majority of jobs will be the oil or the oil modifieds and so it be good practice to utilize the 'let dry' regularly or to at least keep in mind. Most probably familiar with it anyways simply by nature of weak chem application methods. Generally when using DS methods or bigger diaphragm pumps I get enough chems on that things don't dry out before I come back and hit so sometimes I instintually just don't even hardly spray the areas with totaly failed stain or if it is just gray bare wood..

[plainpainter 217]

Beth - I don't doubt that percarbs by itself can do what you say it does. But then will a 'Raw' strongly mixed brew of percarb make the wood fuzz up real bad? I guess TSP mixed hot enough with enough scrubbing and applications can kill mildew - but by the time it does - the paint is gone as well. I use to mix up hydroxide to strip finishes - and was using up to 24ozs. per gallon - then I learned about surfactants - and have gotten that down to 3 ozs. to do the same job.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Hey Dan that 24 oz...that was the ds concoction wasn't it?.. What surfactant you refering to as saving you from using so much hydroxide...the nonyl phenol, tsp, or the glycol?

ps- almost all of the additives we use do multiple acts of being a surfactant,emulisfier, softener, or the boosting that we crave so much to get the various tough finishes off. One may do one task better than another so in comes the multiple chems...Main thing I recognize in my research is that indeed the breaking of surface tension/wetting is the biggest key in cleaning anything. If not for factors such as being enviro safe and being less toxic to animals and humans, I would probably simply use plain old ethylene glycol and hydroxides for everything in proper dilution.. :)

[sealerguy 14]

Had a question about ratio's, but figured it out, bump this post.

[JumpFeetFirst 14]

I have had a few paint jobs for commercial GC's that require a data sheet on every product used.

Question: How do you get your home brew a patent, passed by the powers as acceptable and faxed to them in the form of a data sheet when asked? I do not think on the fly would work because some of these people are leed freaks when it comes to the enviroment.