Maintenance cleaning on a deck

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Here's a deck we recently cleaned. It is for a repeat customer of ours, they are getting a maintenance cleaning and then another coat of Wood Tux, Western Cedar color. They live in a heavily treed area (tall and dense) with a good sized creek running about 20 yards from the deck. Lots of mildew and algae. The deck was cleaned with EFC-38 at 8 oz to the gallon. Photo shows it working.

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

Hi - I am a painter by trade, that has gotten into pressure washing - first just because it's great prep to a house prior to scraping, then second being asked to revitalize decks. In my area the extent of most painters' arsenal is jomax - coming to this site I didn't realize that you guys have gone way way way past this. I have never really heard about even stripping a deck, but I guess that's because 19 out of 20 customers in new england - never ever even treated their decks with anything, just dirty mildewy grey/black wood.

So my question is - how do you decide whether to do a maintenance cleaning versus a total strip? I had a deck I did 2 years ago, where it was 4-5 yrs. old, never treated, and all grey. So I wetted the deck, put a gallon of bleach into a 5 gallon bucket , filled the rest with water - and then scrubbed it onto the deck - pressure washed it off, then rinsed rinsed rinsed - and had a nice honey wood deck again. I put on Muralo's Lumber jacket transparent stain - 2 coats on all the flat parts.

So now it's 2 years later, deck is in Full Southern sun - never any shade and is up against a white house. It has some failure on it now - not much, but peeling in some places. Would you just go ahead and do a maintenance cleaning, and restain? This is a 10' x 45' deck, with 2 stairways - approx 6' off the ground - and a total pain to do. I am charging them $900 to do a pressure washing and staining - and I feel that's a great deal - since I have done this deck before and know what it takes to do it. But I know, rich as they are with their homes on Hawaii, Martha's vineyard, Maine - that they think it's too expensive - and wouldn't pay me to do a real strip anyways.

What would the value be of stripping anyways? Wouldn't you only strip a deck, if it's been really abused - like say, they waited 5 years to treat instead of 2?

-plainpainter

[steve r 14]

If the deck is peeling ya need to strip and reseal

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

This deck was not stripped, just given a light maintenance wash to remove the topical algae and mildew due to the heavy tree growth surrounding the home on all sides. It has Wood Tux on it, and the sealer has held up beautifully. It will be given a light maintenance coat of Wood Tux. (Wood Tux doesn't peel - at least we have never seen it)

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

Steve - if there is minor peeling - why not just clean up the deck with TSP and some bleach product, and then reseal? The wood oxidation will be gone in the peeled sections - so it you won't notice a difference when it is resealed. It's not much peeling either, I don't know what kind of customers you have - but if I had to sell them on stripping their decks every other year - yikes they'd probably sue me or something. I'd rather just sand down the bare spots a little bit after it dried - rather than telling them, they have to pay 2g's every other year to have their deck stripped, neutralized, and resealed. I was thinking maybe after 3 coatings - sell them on a strip job.

As a sidenote - I was confronted by this guy that wanted his deck he treated with that two component system by Cetol - Cetol Deck and Deck Base I believe - to be revived, since there was lots of peeling. He said he went with that product, because it's tough as nails - and didn't want to stain every year, he wanted to wait like 5 years. Well I talked to a Cetol rep - and they basically told me, as tough as it is - proper care is to apply a new coat every year - and that if you wait for failure in the coating - then you missed the point.

-plainpainter

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Cetol - Cetol Deck and Deck Base

Now that's a whole other can of worms, worthy of its own thread....

Beth

[PressurePros 249]

Steve - if there is minor peeling - why not just clean up the deck with TSP and some bleach product, and then reseal?

That would be the course of action if you were reapplying a solid. I would also use a primer before I laid down another coat. At some point in your wood "career" someone is going to ask you to remove paint or solid stain so they can use a semi trans and see their wood grain again. This type of job requires different kinds of strippers, different dwell times and often reapplication and washing. I usually charge triple for a job like that.

[James 625]

All the products in this thread trap moisture in the wood.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

No they don't. EFC-38 is a cleaner, and mentioned in this thread. Citralic was mentioned, and it doesn't trap moisture either. Wood Tux - same thing - does not trap moisture.

Now....IF applied to ALL sides of a board, then yes, Sikkens Cetol Dek will trap moisture in when applied incorrectly, but given that the majority of those out there never seal the underside of the deck....now then...proper elevation is a whole other issue with Sikkens Cetol DEK. As I said, this topic (Cetol DEK) needs a thread of it's own.

This thread was about a maintenance WASH.

Beth