Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

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BoatDr
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Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by BoatDr » July 8th, 2015, 9:57 am

What are you guys using to clean your deck? Your concrete? Anything "grass friendly?"
Every year, I wait until the trees are done with their spring droppings to clean the deck and patio. I normally just use the pressure washer, but the deck is getting grainy. I have lots of shade and the wife's potted plants so it's loaded with green/black mold. I'll do it lightly, but a solution would help.
The concrete is brown with black spots from oak droppings. I'm not so concerned about the "grass friendly" part for the deck, but the concrete runoff floods the grass.
Anybody got any suggestions?


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JustAGuy
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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by JustAGuy » July 8th, 2015, 11:30 am

I've used dish soap and ammonia near the lawn areas. Jerry Baker uses something similar in one of his tonics. Dish soap and chlorine, but I keep that away for grass and bushes. I've also use trisodium phosphate (TSP) not to be confused with triplesuper phosphate, it did a great job on my deck along with a pressure washer.

ENVY23
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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by ENVY23 » July 8th, 2015, 12:53 pm

I've had good luck with "Wet and Forget" for the mold and algae on my deck, vinyl siding, and plastic mailbox. It works on concrete, too, and it's safe for plants. It's not an instant clean though, it may take a few months, and heavily stained areas may take up to a year and a couple of applications, but it does work. It's sort of like a fungicide. You can use it as a preventative or as a curative, but the latter will take a little while to get ideal results. But it always takes longer to fix something than to prevent it in the first place. I'd clean everything with a pressure washer then treat the area with Wet and Forget as a preventative. I apply it yearly to all kinds of stuff and I haven't seen the mold/algae come back yet.

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BoatDr
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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by BoatDr » July 8th, 2015, 3:27 pm

Nice, thanks!

I was at a party for the fourth, an I saw that my buddy painted his concrete patio. You would think it might look ghetto, but not so. He did it a matching scheme to his siding/trim. An outdoor rug to put the table and chairs on, not too shabby, I must say. I'm considering it from a maintenance stand point.


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ken-n-nancy
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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by ken-n-nancy » July 9th, 2015, 8:05 am

ENVY23 wrote:I've had good luck with "Wet and Forget" for the mold and algae on my deck....
Never heard of "Wet and Forget" before, but various reviews I read for it online seem to be generally glowing.

Is your deck a pressure-treated wood, or a plastic deck (e.g. Azek?) We've had problems with our PT deck getting slightly mildewed every year and would love a product which meant we didn't have to bleach it every year!


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BoatDr
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Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by BoatDr » July 9th, 2015, 8:45 am

20 year old pressure treated. I'm amazed at the good condition of the wood. I'm convinced that it stayed frozen in time, because nobody pressure washed it before I got there. I'm considering the restore or deck over products, but I've heard mixed results.


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ENVY23
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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by ENVY23 » July 9th, 2015, 1:07 pm

ken-n-nancy wrote:
ENVY23 wrote:I've had good luck with "Wet and Forget" for the mold and algae on my deck....
Never heard of "Wet and Forget" before, but various reviews I read for it online seem to be generally glowing.

Is your deck a pressure-treated wood, or a plastic deck (e.g. Azek?) We've had problems with our PT deck getting slightly mildewed every year and would love a product which meant we didn't have to bleach it every year!

Our deck is pressure treated and has Behr cedar tinted transparent sealer on it. I too was tired of bleaching and scrubbing it(and vigorously scrubbing the really bad spots damaged our sealer forcing us to re-apply it), so we decided to give this product a shot. It works well, but like I said don't expect immediate results. If you are patient the results will come. Emphasis on the "Forget" part. lol If it's heavily stained, they recommend coming back a month later and re-applying or brushing the surface. It's easy to use, just mix it in a pump sprayer and start spraying(liberally). Buy more than you need though, because you WILL use it. Once I did my deck, I realized my gutters weren't looking that great so I did those, then did our mailbox(plastic), all the outdoor furniture(plastic, metal, and glass), my porch lights(metal/glass), the paver patio, then bought more and treated the north facing vinyl siding.

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oze
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Rust-Oleum 2x Deck Restore

Post by oze » September 16th, 2015, 10:20 am

BoatDr wrote:20 year old pressure treated. I'm amazed at the good condition of the wood. I'm convinced that it stayed frozen in time, because nobody pressure washed it before I got there. I'm considering the restore or deck over products, but I've heard mixed results.


- Sent From My Sandlot.
I don't visit this part of ATY often, so sorry for the late bump. We just refinished our deck with the Rustoleum Restore 2x product; the deck at the house we bought was in sorry shape, and was obviously neglected--I replaced about 1/3 of the boards last fall.

Anyway, here is a link to a review I posted on the Home Depot web site (click on the single review link): http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rust-Oleum-R ... 852702-_-x

As you can tell, I was less than pleased. However, I called the Rustoleum rep as requested in his followup post, and he was very concerned with my review. He agreed that I did everything correctly, and offered me a refund. I thought I was going to get my money back for the 2 additional gallons that I had to purchase, but a subsequent email from the company indicated that they will be sending a check to cover the first 3 gallons and tax. Now *that* is customer service. I only wish that the web site allowed me to add to or follow up my review. I wonder if those initial 3 cans were from a bad batch somehow. I mean, not only was the color wrong, but the second 2 cans were noticeably thicker.

Now, the color looks great; we also got some rain 4 days after we finished, and I have to say that water beads up on the deck like it was covered with carnuba wax. :cool:

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Re: Cleaning The Deck And Patio.

Post by bassadict69 » April 18th, 2016, 11:58 am

Lots of great reviews and information here! http://www.deckstainhelp.com/. Also has some great info on deck cleaners.

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