Cleaning wood is not rocket science but it does require a little knowledge of the products and methods available. If you are going to restore your own deck then you will certainly be using a wood deck cleaner. There are several types of cleaners out there but the two basic and most commonly used ones are sodium percarbonate cleaners and bleach-based cleaners. There are pros and cons to each type.
Restore-A-Deck (RAD) products are specifically designed for the do-it-yourself homeowner wanting to get professional results. The RAD products were formulated by professional woodcare experts. This easy to use two-step system will make the job of bringing your deck back to life easier and quicker. The RAD products were designed to use with a simple deck brush and garden hose for homeowners whom do not have a pressure washer. A deck brush used with these products will get rid of gray wood fibers, mold, mildew and dirt. With that said if you do have access to a pressure washer it can have great advantages to using with RAD products.
If you do not own a pressure washer you can rent one from a local hardware center. Try to get the one with the highest GPM (gallons per minute). The higher the GPM the faster you will be able to wash. The pressure is not as crucial since you should not clean wood with high pressure anyway. Excessive pressure can cause serious damage to your deck. Damage can differ from raised grain and splinters to wand marks that will show up even more after staining.
Deck maintenance is the key to prolonging a deck’s structural integrity and overall appearance. It is well known that a wooden deck has to be cleaned and sealed every couple of years to deflect the major causes of water and UV damage that would otherwise occur. Board warping, cracking, splitting, UV fading, discoloring, and mold infiltration are just some of the major damaging effects that unprotected wood is subjected to.
Before now you could only purchase a wood cleaner to clean common dirt, grime, and mold from a deck surface. You would then have to purchase separately a wood brightener to level the pH of the wood and open the wood pores to prepare them for a coat of deck stain. Because of this hassle, many people would simply skip the all-important brightening step, which unknowingly, would cause the deck stain to fail prematurely. A lack of proper deck prepping is the number one reason a deck stain or sealer fails prematurely. The wood professionals, to get the most performance from a deck stain use this 2-step restoration method.
Strip and Brighten? What is Best Prep?
When it comes to deck restoration and maintenance it is important to know that in order to get good results the wood must be prepped correctly. When a deck stain fails prematurely it can normally be associated with incorrect or lack of wood prep work prior to the stain being applied. Any research on deck restoration will reveal that you need to remove any old failing coatings prior to applying a new stain. You might see the words strip and brighten. So what is the best prep? Strip or brighten?
Actually, both are necessary to get good results. To explain, stripping or using a stain stripper is the method of using a stripping agent during the cleaning process. This is typically done with the aid of a pressure washer. A stripper will emulsify old coatings making them easier to remove with the washer. This will reveal bare clean wood, which will make the best surface possible for the new deck stain.