Wood deck cleaning

Wood is made up of microscopic small cells. When a small piece of wood is looked through microscope it looks like honeycomb.Cleaning your deck when it appears to be dirty is strictly an appearanceissue and does not affect the performance ofmost composite materials. Cleaning your deck is your responsibility. Try safely to remove spots on your deck. If you are in an area where mold and mildew grows regularly you need to clean it more often so that it doesn’t appear again. Deck cleaning should be done regularly because it damages the fibers preventing good adhesion of any type of top coat. Keeping a wood deck clean is a good way to avoid costly maintenance later. Debris that clogs the spaces between deck board’s traps moisture, encouraging mildew and rot. Blast out the debris, using a powerful nozzle on a garden hose, then push out remaining debris with a putty knife or an old handsaw. We should thoroughly scrub the surface with a sudsy mixture of water and laundry detergent, using a stiff fiber brush on a long handle. Work in small areas and rinse periodically. This may be all it takes to return much of the wood’s natural tone. Unprotected wood is immediately attacked as soon as it is exposed in the sun’s ultra violet rays and water from snow, rainfall and dew. The water cans rotten the wood in untreated lumbers such as cedar and redwood.

Understanding the problems with wood:

The particles are larger than the cells will be blown or washed away smaller particles will fall into the cell and accumulate over time. The cells fills as we no longer see the color of the wood, but only the color of the combined particles appearing to the viewer as an unattractive grungy gray. The finishing of the wood should be done properly. Preserving of the wood and storing is dependant on:

1. Getting the surface clean
2. Saturating the wood with high solid finish.

The wood without proper protection will rapidly deteriorate from the following elements: Water, freezing and thawing, sunlight, mold and mildew. The water absorbs into the wood and washes out the natural wood resins and color. And also rain water promotes algae, mold, and mildew growth and rotting.