Top Notch Pressure Washing

You may be wondering why you need to have your deck or fence stained.  Look at the picture below and you can see how the sun, rain, dirt and mildew all play a destructive role on wood surfaces.

Th main reason wood cracks is water gets into the wood and makes it swell.  Then the sun comes out and dries the wood which shrinks it.  After time this expansion and contraction cracks wood.

Sometimes when stain is applied to a deck that has not been washed properly the mildew continues to grow under the finish.  This renders the finish useless because stain is supposed to prevent anything from getting into the wood.

When we do a full wood restoration, which is what it needed when applying new stain, we take certain steps to make sure the surface is clean and ready for the stain.

Step 1: Stripping the deck.  We use a very high alkali detergent to remove the old stain as well as clean the wood of all the dirt and mildew

Step 2: This step is very important and often overlooked by people not educated in wood.  Step 2 is applying a wood brightner called Oxalic Acid.  This step serves two purposes. The Oxalic Acid neutralizes the alkali detergent and brightens the wood to near new appearance.  If you do not neutralize the alkali detergent, the wood will turn a dark black and actually eat and destroy the wood.

Step 3: This step is the longest.  We wait for 2-3 days of no rain so that the deck can dry to a moisture content of around 12%.  After the wood has dried sufficiently we can stain the deck the color of your choice. 

We use and trust READY SEAL brand stain.  It is an oil based penetrating stain/sealer that is far, far superior to most other brands of stain.