Liquid bleach for wood deck cleaning?

[geoshecks]

Hi all,

:?:
Has anyone used chlorine bleach and soap to clean a wood deck? When I do a net search, all articles seem to say that it's bad for the wood. Of course those articles are usually attached to an ad for deck cleaning chemicals. This seems reminiscent of the typical pool supply stance against liquid bleach for pools. Any suggestions? Comments? Hints?

Thanks :-D

 

[lawman1989]

used it once and had no problems.

 

[mudrider420]

well, dont know if its bad or not but if you look at some of those deck cleaners it will mention bleach as one of the ingredients. just make sure you rinse the deck out very well after you use it.

 

[cruzmisl]

I use this


www.stainsolver.com

safer, relatively cheap and works REALLY well.

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

The first time we needed to clean our deck (before staining it, which we have never gotten around to!) we asked at home depot and they sold us some wood deck cleaner product and said, "Scrub it with this." Imagine my surprise when I discovered we bought a $10 bottle of clorox!

Since then we use clorox and a wimpy electric pressure washer. Yes, the pressure washer leaves it just a tad 'fuzzy', but that does not bother me.

 

[No P in my ool]

A little chlorine helps in killing the mold that is present on a dirty deck. Power washing with a cleaner without bleach will not kill the mold.

 

[anonapersona]

I got this instruction from the guy who built our deck...

Make a washing solution in a 5 gallon bucket of 1 gal bleach, 4 to 5 oz liquid soap, fill with water.

Wet the entire deck with a fine mist of water from hose. Use a push broom to sweep solution over a 15'x15' area. Mist the first area again and sweep the solution on the second 15'x15' area. Mist both areas and continue. When done, stand in the middle of the deck and mist entire deck for 10 minutes. Let dry. Repeat when water no longer beads up, annually for the most part.

Spray with Olympic (water repellant from Sears) -- but there may be newer products that are better than that now as these instructions are about 15 years old

What you should not do is to pressure wash the deck. My dear spouse insisted on doing that from time to time and we picked splinters out of our backsides for a long time afterwards, AND had to wash all the windows of the fine mush of wood fibers.