Stripping, cleaning, bleaching and staining your deck each and every
year
One day you start
to have the feeling that the extension of your home has been doubtful
whether it looks good or not for over the last few years. Each and every
spring you spend days to try to renovate and restore the beauty of your
hardwood deck. Finally when all your efforts pay off and the hard work is
finished, you are able to enjoy your hard labor. The year passes by and
there is the new spring again and the your are. Stripping, cleaning,
bleaching and staining your deck each and every year can become quite
awkward. However, there is a solution by making your deck stain last longer
using a quality stain and deck cleaner.
Just
like most jobs, the eventual finish mostly depends on the preparations
prior to the actual job. For example, a paint job requires to clean and
sand the walls prior to the painting and only then the final result will
look good, Exactly the same is true for deck renovation and finishing. The
secret is prior to the job to apply the correct cleaner first. However,
almost all products available contain a bleaching component. If you bleach
your wood deck, then you damage the lignin resulting in the wood to degrade
its age prematurely.
The
best The best preparation is to clean your deck in just two steps. first is
to apply a product that contains sodium percarbonate. This element is to
attack the mold, dirt and dead grayed-out grains. Secondly is the
application of a deck cleaner and this product is always acid and this
balances the pH. Cleaning your deck in fact means opening up the pores of
the wood and provide a fix from the deck sealers and deck stains to your
deck for much more lastingness of your application.
Maintenance and graying of your deck
If
you look for little maintenance, just have your ipe deck become grayish. It
depends on the specific area and how often your deck is exposed to rain,
shade or sun, it will gray only after a few months and will be really grey
in a year time. In general your deck is fully gray within two years. Ipe
deck however its gray has a nice silver look, it is not like the gray of
for example treated Pine. It actually looks pretty good.
However,
if you really do not like this graying there is the possibility to keep
your deck like new. If you want to keep your deck look like new, you need
to apply a UV inhibitor coating (finish) on your deck. It is possible to
paint, but don't hassle on premium grades. If you are going to paint, or
just buy a lower quality grade and cheaper decking. UV sun rays are the
enemy of all deck wood and it is not important what wood species, they ALL
gray. Please remind that this graying is just on the surface, so when you
sand your deck or use a cleaner/ stripper or brightener, your grayed deck
will revert into its new condition (nice wood color).
Cleaning ipe deck
Anyhow,
when finishing your deck, be sure you pick a finish specialized for ipe
hardwood. On the market there are several to chose from for example there
is a product called Total Wood Protectant (TWP). Its price is around $30
for a gallon buying the 100 serie with several different colors to choose.
We also recommend Ipe Oil (something like $55 per gallon), Ready Seal,
Messmer's and Woodrich. Besides there are more, but these brands enjoy our
preference.
Deck
cleaning and maintenance illustrated and made easy
removing
mold, dirt from your deck
grayed
wood deck thru uv sun light
deck
cleaning using sodium percarbonate
Learn more on deck maintenance, renovation, deck
cleaning, brightening and stripping:
