Cleaning with Resene Timber and Deck Wash

Resene Timber and Deck Wash is a quick and easy way to clean surfaces, such as weatherboards, decks and fences, prior to staining or painting.

How to clean your deck

Before you restain a deck you first need to clean it. While many automatically get out the waterblaster, this can actually damage your deck.

Cleaning a deck with Resene Timber and Deck Wash

You will need:

Resene Timber and Deck Wash
A garden sprayer
A decent hard bristled deck scrubbing brush and a smaller hand held brush for corners, etc
A source of fresh water

Instructions:

A timber deck before cleaning with Resene Timber and Deck Wash prior to restaining
The existing deck in this project was very mouldy and quite slippery when wet.

Scrubbing a timber deck with Resene Timber and Deck Wash
After spraying Resene Timber and Deck Wash onto the timber and keeping it wet and ‘active’ for 15 - 20 minutes, the deck was scrubbed vigorously.

keep the deck damp while cleaning with Resene Timber and Deck Wash
Do manageable areas at a time, as you need to keep the surface damp – so avoid direct sunshine and high winds.

A cleaned area of a timber deck
Still wet but you can see the notable difference after scrubbing. Once the rest is cleaned and dry, the full deck will be ready for restaining.

How to clean a wooden fence

This project involved cleaning a wooden fence with Resene Timber and Deck Wash. The fence was 18 years old and had never been painted or cleaned. It was very faded and was starting to look very black in places, especially in shaded areas. With a long driveway, the fence was the first impression of the house. Keen to improve the appearance of the fence, the homeowners decided to clean it using Resene Timber and Deck Wash, before staining. Once the cleaning was done, the fence looked almost brand new.

Before and after cleaning a timber fence

The left part of the fence was washed with Resene Timber and Deck Wash. The right part of the fence shows the original weathered fence before cleaning.

The process followed was:

Paint on the Resene Timber and Deck Wash with a wide brush. Be generous with the application as it needs to stay wet. Leave for 10-15 minutes.
Scrub the full fence pale using a hand scrubbing brush, rubbing up and down with the grain, with a general scrub on all areas and rinse with water. This will get off the worst of the staining.
Rescrub the entire fence pale being more thorough, with extra focus on areas that are still showing staining. Rinse thoroughly with water. By doing the scrubbing in two phases – one quick and then one more thorough, you end up with a cleaner fence.
Apply to sections of fence pales and do them as a block, rather than one fence pale at a time. Generally 4-6 fence pales was a good manageable amount.

Cleaning a timber fence with Resene Timber and Deck Wash

Top tips:

Work in shady areas wherever possible and out of the hottest part of the day, to allow the cleaner to stay wet.
Encourage family members to help. This was a very large fence so it helped having extra pairs of hands to help get the work done.
Break the job into smaller manageable parts. This makes the project less daunting and it is easier to keep on track. Plus if you have a day off from prepping the fence you can easily catch up on the lost time.
Work with the wind direction. As you scrub small particles will come off the fence so work so these blow away from you not towards you.
Wear all safety gear needed, including sun protection.