Trex and sodium hydroxide

[RPetry 564]

I have a job coming up with a trex deck and cedar balustrade, fascia, and step risers. The cedar will be stripped of old stain using NaOH, specifically F-18 Max at ~ 6 oz./gal. The trex will be cleaned with sodium percarbonate.

This is old, possibly the original brand of trex. Weathers to a kind of muddy brown-dark gray and is light gray when cleaned. Question is does NaOH have any coloring or other effect on the trex?

Will spray the cedar with a shurflo and will certainly get some stripper solution onto the trex deck. Any experience and advice would be welcomed. Thanks.

[PressurePros 248]

Wet the floor. Apply F-18. Strong HD-80 definitely removes color from composites. Not sure about F-18. I have found sodium percarbonate to be inadequate for cleaning Trex. Six percent sodium hypo with brushing has worked best for me.

[seymore 90]

bleach for cleaning Composites for me too..:cool:

[PressurePros 248]

Shane you'd clean your mother with bleach if she stood still long enough LOL.. Call me as soon as you wake up 610-662-4036

[RPetry 564]

Hey Ken,

Thanks. Did this deck 3 yrs. ago and the trex cleaned up very nice with straight sodium percarbonate at 8 oz./gal. My problem with BLEECH! is getting 12% around here and I'm sure not going to use Clorox.

The cedar was stained with F&P which I used before Tom of ACR started carrying Ready Seal. So the strip is on me, no premium over normal cleaning prices. I would think your suggestion of a wet floor should be ok. F-18 at med. low strength is probably less of a worry than HD-80 at the same mix concentration. Will citric acid the whole job when done stripping and percarbonating.

Thanks for the tip.

EDIT: Hey, Shane, Ken, somebody... Tell me about BLEECH! Just got off the phone with another pool suppy company. They carry sodium hypochlorite in powdered form, $50 for 50 lbs. Is this what I should be looking for? Thanks.

[plainpainter 217]

Is it my imagination or Trex doesn't age very well? Everyone wants a miracle substitute for wood.

-Dan

[seymore 90]

Shane you'd clean your mother with bleach if she stood still long enough LOL.. Call me as soon as you wake up 610-662-4036

You funny man :D

I just got home it's already almost 9 p.m i just tried calling you my cell is crapped out so i left you my home number 281-444-8806

I'll try you in the A.M if i don't hear from ya

[JimCrossley 14]

I just finished a deck this week using sodium percarbonate. This was the decks first cleaning in four years and the deck was new in 2002. I used a surface cleaner for the floor and the project went very quickly (500psi per jet). The house is very close to me so I did the job in 2 days just so I could take this picture.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

We have used HD-80 to clean colored trex like the ones in our photo gallery of Joe's Crabshack deck. We also made sure to use Citralic afterwards to make sure the hd-80 wasn't still active to creat problems with either the trex or customers using the deck to dine on.

Citralic will also help to BLEECH out the tannin stains that come out of the trex itself.

Rod!~