Clean Your Deck With Oxygen Bleach Timberwash
As the snow melts and things begin to green up again
, homeowners begin to think of the daunting task of preparing the deck for the season. Anything that resides outside is going to get dirty and grimy due to the weather. The deck is a horizontal surface, and it feels the full effect of the suns UV rays. The rays not only discolor the deck, they soften the lignin in the wood, making cleaning it a little trickier.Since most decks have experienced a certain amount of sun damage, pressure washing your deck to clean it is not always the best thing to do. No matter how much dirt or mildew has built up, usually power washing the deck will blast away not only the mildew but also the wood itself, causing unsightly damage. The power washer can actually remove weakened lignin fibers.
In place of a power washer, or worse, household bleach, I recommend using oxygen bleach. It is absolutely essential that you do not use chlorine bleach to clean the deck. Chlorine bleach is your typical household bleach which does a great job on household things but will remove color from your wood and weaken the woods fibers even more than they already are. Any bleaches marked with the ingredient sodium hypochlorite is chlorine bleach and should not be brought anywhere near your deck, or the surrounding vegetation. Chlorine bleach will kill any plants that it touches.
In contrast, oxygen bleach is the perfect ingredient for cleaning your deck. Instead of blasting away at the wood with a power washer or washing away not only the algae and grime but also the actual color of the wood itself, oxygen bleach gently foams as its ions work to completely eliminate the dirt on the deck as well as anything else that has built up. Chlorine bleach can cause the corrosion of nails, framing components, and other bolts on the deck, but oxygen bleach will not.
Following cleaning the deck, it is imperative to stain it to prevent further damage. After all the impurities have been gently scrubbed away (you may need to use a scrubbing brush to gently scrub the wood with the oxygen bleach on it) you absolutely must be sure to apply some protection to the wood that is always exposed to the elements. Look for a stain that is made with synthetic resins, not natural oils or resins, because algae and mildew feed on natural oils and resins, promoting their growth.
Also, your stain should be water-based and deep penetrating, meaning that it should not, absolutely should not be a stain that merely sits on the top of the deck. These stains trap in water vapors and actually promote water damage to your deck. A penetrating wood stain goes deep into the wood through the pores due to a smaller molecular make up and allows vapors to move freely through the wood, never trapping them inside to cause their problems. In conclusion, when looking for a stain it should be a water-based epoxy sealer with completely synthetic resins and should only be applied after cleaning the deck with an oxygen bleach.
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