Newer decks

[RPetry]

Tony,

Too much pigment and red for my personal taste, but what a great job in prepping and staining a difficult wood. Kudos to your work and effort!

Have not seen SS screws used with PT wood in a very long time. Nice job.

[Tonyg]

Rick,

I tried to talk him out of it since he changed his mind from a Cedar Tone to the Red/White after he saw the pics from the first 2-tone deck I did last month. I didn't want to do a mini-me deck. The Sequoia/Natural was a compromise.

I was able to recover the pics from the cleaning so I thought I would post what I was talking about. I did sand it out clean before it was stained but these are from after the cleaning.

Not enough chems? Not enough pressure? Or is that the best I could expect?

[RPetry]

Hi Tony,

I do not know. For 2 yr. old wood, PT or not, the after cleaning pics do not look like wood is ready to be spot sanded and stained. Just my observation from a few pictures, not being critical of your work.

On some jobs, we do a very light bleach, kill the mold/mildew cleaning followed by a sodium percarb cleaning. After that, citric acid for a neutralizer/brightener.

Hard to say, after a while you just get a kind of feel for what is best. Wood is somewhat of an art. Beware of "cookie cutter" advice.

I still think your after staining pictures look great. Keep an eye on the wood and stain for the next two years. It will be the best teacher.

[PressurePros]

That's washing technique, Tony. I wash one board at a time. Spray pattern just wide enough to cover a single board. More pressure will remove that gray.

[YVPW]

On newer PT decks as long as you have your chemicals right just increase your pressure and that will fix the problem on these kind of decks

[plainpainter]

That's definitely too low a pressure rinse job. Heck I think 800 psi is low - heck with the purists, bump up your pressure to 1000-1200 psi - that will knock everything off. Remember the high pressure is bad mantra - is because guys were butchering decks with 2500psi low volume machines at too close a distance. Newly grey decks don't clean up well with percarbs. You have to wait til the deck is a solid 4-5 years to develop an even 'crust' of sun UV damaged wood that comes off evenly.

[James]

I do much new wood. That grey will not come off with chems or pressure. There is a point at which it has to be taken off with buffing . If the deck was done at the 6 month point a bleaching and a rinse could be done. After that it depends on many factors and choice of products.

When wood starts to grey. It's just that grey and it hasn't broken down enough to be removed with pressure or chems. Increasing either causes more problems. When a new deck is built I give the customer a schedule of when I have to oil to avoid this problem.
The deck that I just competed was at 8 months and had some minor firing which my defurnomore machine took care of

[YVPW]

On the newer decks, decks that aren't maybe a month or 2 old I just use chem with a no pressure wash. If there a year old, the chems and higher pressure has worked for me for the most part. I buff everything on every deck except the newest. I have saw what Jim described in a few small areas while buffing. The sun doesn't gray out the wood evenly with decks that have rails and areas of shade.