Have you gone out on your deck to fire up the barbeque on one of these nicer days, only to slip on the slippery green surface and send your 2" peppercorn steaks over the neighbor's fence into the clutches of a friendly pit bull terrier? Well, maybe nothing that bad, but it's easy to get hurt if the condition isn't corrected. We recommend applying a solution of 1/2 cup of bleach to 1 gallon of hot water. Don't necessarily scrub, just sweep into the wood grain with a stout whisk broom. It should be black the next day, and fairly easy to clean up with a hose and the broom. Be careful of adjacent plants, trees, children and pets. They don't like bleach.
If the result isn't satisfactory, carefully clean with a pressure washer. But be careful to hold the nozzle at least 12" off the deck. Too close and you may fray the grain, creating a bigger mess than you started with. We recommend that the pressure washing be followed, as soon as it dries out, with application of a wood preservative or stain. The reason is that the washing strips natural protective oils from the wood. If not replenished with a preservative, a deck is prone cracking, cupping, and aging, thus failing, prematurely. Pressure washing is better done in the summer when the deck can dry out quickly and completely before applying a preservative.
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Comments 1
Regarding decks, one of our clients needed to have the top decking replaced. They hired a handyman to take care of it. We noticed after some of the new boards had been secured that (1) they were using what appear to be galvanized siding nails and (2) they were not in a straight line. Altogether it looked tacky. I would think that for such nice expensive 5/4 clear cedar, one would use either finish nails or screws. And I’d think that a good carpenter would go to the trouble of snapping some chalk lines in order to get the nail or screw heads in a straight line.