An Acrylic Nightmare..kids don't try this at home

[PressurePros 249]

I have to tell a story about this job. I arrive for the proposal and the guy is watering his lawn.

"Hi, Mr B, Ken, PressurePros. We spoke on the phone?"

"Oh hey, Hi Ken. Let me show you the deck, I just need the flaking washed off and then resealed."

As we go around the back he tells me he hired a guy two years ago to do the deck and he was surprised that deck doesn't last very long. When I turn the corner I get that little lump in my throat. The dreaded solid. Here is what I saw:

Yikes!

[PressurePros 249]

"Hmmmm, looks pretty bad for two years. Do you happend to know what product was used?"

"Oh yeah, I still have the can in my garage"

As he gets the can I am praying to myself.. Please don't be an acrylic, please don't be an acrylic. As he comes out of the garage I can see the words "7 YEAR GUARANTEE" on the label. Sh*t, this one is going to be fun. I go back to the truck and mix up my stripper full beans..ten oz per gallon. I spray it on a rail and wait. Ten minutes, nothing. Twenty minutes, nothing. It might as well have been water. I tell him I will be back this afternoon with his proposal.

I wrote up the worst case scenario and charged accordingly. When I went back I mixed up the HD and added the booster. I screwed the lid onto the spray bottle and the sides of the bottle caved in and the thing was almost too hot to hold. Again I sprayed the rails. After a 40 minute dwell (keeping it wet) I was able to scrape some of the solid off with a tongue depressor. Looks like my worst case scenario wasn't even close.

Modified the proposal again and met with the homeowners. Explained what was going on and the only way to rectify it. (They did not want a solid) Long story short after the husband and wife picked themselves up from the floor I got the go ahead.

On the spot I mix up the amount of stripper I need. I'm wearing a 3M respirator and I can still taste it. I also thickened the mixture so it would not evaporate. I saturated the deck and wrapped the whole thing in plastic. We were back the next morning and things were slippery, most of the deck was still moist. I rewet the whole thing and went to town.

Using 1000 psi (60 degree) this is the result we got on the first pass.

[PressurePros 249]

Another round of stripper, another two hour dwell and we were back. This time everything came up.

[PressurePros 249]

I almost dreaded seeing this thing dry. Those of you that do wood, cedar especially, can imagine what all that super potent stripper did to the wood. You could have knit a cellulose sweater. Three hours later is was clean as whistle (Osborne brushes on variable speed buffers)

[PressurePros 249]

We had to lay down 130 linear feet of new flooring. That was a project in itself since the builder used 4" spiral nails through 16 foot 2"x6" 's.

Wood Tux Wet, custom color. Finished today.

[Jeff 232]

Wow thats absolutly amazing work, I would have been running the other way. Nice stripjob

[PressurePros 249]

One more time

[PressurePros 249]

Thanks Jeff.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Acrylics and low clearance decks-101

This deck has less than 2 feet clearance below it. Non-sufficient airflow. This is a common condition that will contribute to a higher wood moisture content leading to the failure of the sealer. The wood becomes swollen with moisture and if given enough of a dry spell...1-2 months, it will shrink. Since the acrylic doesn't have the equivalent thermal coefficient to compensate for the expansion/contraction of the wood, it breaks up and starts to flake away.

Any high film forming product will suffer this fate on decks with less than 2' clearance.

Nice work Ken.

Rod~

[Celeste 341]

Beautiful job Ken - I bet your bank account was happier than your backside (you obviously worked that off on that job!)

Celeste

[Littlefield 65]

Wow! Ken, I hae to say, thats one of the nicest strip jobs I've seen in a while... Good thinking on the plastic idea.

[Aplus 525]

That's really nice work Ken!

Any more, I don't have the patience for all the effort you put into that job. Maybe at this time of the year when things are slow I might tackle such a job, but not during the summer rush.

I hope you made out well because I know how hard you had to work to get results like that!

[seymore 90]

ohhhhhhh Ahhhhhhhhhh tooo :cool:

Danggggg that looked like a fun job...I like those kinds of challenges of restoring a deck in that bad of shape it makes me remember why i like this work..... Ohyeah unless i'm having to strip a 3000sqft + of decking in this bad of shape ...:lgbugeyes

Keep up the great wood work Ken it doesn't get any better looking than this before and after transformation!!

[PressurePros 249]

Thank you, Rich, Tony and Shane. This is definitely a job I would have turned down in mid season. Between estimating, testing, repairs, sanding and sealing, we made 5 trips to this customer's home. During peak season my price would have had to have been so high the homeowner would probably bad mouthed me to all his friends. Makes for a nice portfolio and this guy is a sportscaster on Comcast and writer for a major sport's magazine so I figured having him in my referal column was well worth the effort.

[Matt in Dallas TX 14]

really nice job.

We did one similar to that about a month ago.

atleast we didnt have handrails to contend with. :)

We always try to take our before and afters from the exact spot. So people can really see some of great differences. :D

[PressurePros 249]

Nice job, Matt, looks great. That almost looks like a semi-trans from the picture..was it a solid it's hard to tell ? The acrylics are truly a pain to take off. What stripper do you like to use?

[Tronman 14]

I almost dreaded seeing this thing dry. Those of you that do wood, cedar especially, can imagine what all that super potent stripper did to the wood. You could have knit a cellulose sweater. Three hours later is was clean as whistle (Osborne brushes on variable speed buffers)

Can you elaborate on the use of the Osborne brushes and the variable speed buffers?

[PressurePros 249]

Ken, I switched over to using an Osborne brush instead of defelting pads.

http://www.aloghomestore.com/clean.shtml#buffing-brush

You don't want a ton of rpm's like on a grinder because you will burn the wood. I bought a couple of refurbished Makita polisher/buffers. The brush runs about $90 for the square bristled version and the polishers can vary betwen $40 and $250. Once you get the hang of them (they are heavy and a cheaper polisher will vibrate the fillings right out of your mouth) getting the fuzzies off of wood is quick and very thorough.

[bforbis 14]

I also had a similar experience with a much larger deck. It was a SIKKENS product and it was thick. My test locations indicated about 15 to 20 dwell using a Wolman's deck stripper. After 4 to 5 coats of increasing the dwell time up to 40 minutes I finally get to wood. The total deck surface was about 1700 sf and the piles of fur, and removed coating had to be shoveled away in a wheel barrow!

I like you touch of the Osbourne pads, have not tried that yet, but would like to talk to you about it if you get this. Please give me a call.

[Craig 111]

Congrats, Ken.

Great work!

[Mike Stahmer 14]

I have done a few decks that were similar. However, 2 hours with a drum sander and finish sanding took care of the job much quicker. I applaud your efforts though, must have been nasty!

[PressurePros 249]

I have done a few decks that were similar. However, 2 hours with a drum sander and finish sanding took care of the job much quicker. I applaud your efforts though, must have been nasty!

I considered that option as well. The amount of floor boards that were cupped and warped, seemed to me, would hinder the use of any type of floor sander. Not only that, that would still leave the rails which were the true pain anyway.

[Barry M 73]

Ken, did I understand that right. You coated it with HD wrapped it in plastic and returned the next morning? What was the ratio of mix?

[PressurePros 249]

HD-80 mixed at 10 oz per gallon plus Boost (my own chemical equivalent of Boost) coated twice until saturated then covered until the next morning)

[Washaway 64]

Ken, as everyone above, I too am impressed.

I tip my hat to you!

[shariray 14]

Beautiful Results! Curious to know where you ended up on a price per square foot for tackling that job. I see many jobs like that here in North Jersey, and I feel bad for giving prices of $2.50 to $3.50 per square foot, but I dont know how else you can make a living doing such jobs for less.