One type of pressure wash job that frequently comes up for us is cleaning wood fences.
Wood Fence In Desperate Need Of A Pressure Wash
Whether the fence is made of ceder, pine or any other type of wood, it eventually turns gray, losing its living color, if left untreated.
Gray is the natural color of dead wood cells as the oils in the wood dry out. The oils in the wood dry out as UV rays from sunlight break them down and wind, rain, pollution and dust further deteriorate the surface cells of the wood. So as the surface of wood dries out and turns gray, the layer of wood cells beneath the surface still retains its ‘live’ wood color, because the oils are still present.
Wood that has been stained or sealed will retain its ‘live’ color much longer, but it still has to be maintained. We recently did a job in Parker, CO for a customer who had a pine fence that had never been sealed and they wanted to pressure wash the gray away before sealing it.
However, before they called us, they asked for a pressure wash quote from another company that supposedly specializes in wood deck and fence maintenance.
The customer came home to meet the company for the quote and found that they had already started washing the fence!
The customer told them to stop and after realizing that company had very poor communication, she just told them to leave. That’s when she called Wash On Wheels. Given her recent experience, she was very careful to make sure we understood that she only wanted a quote, so we set a time to meet her at her home.
During the meeting with the homeowner, our manager looked at the fence where the other company had started to pressure wash and found they had already damaged the fence. Anytime you pressure wash wood, a focused, steady hand is critical while washing. Otherwise scoring the wood can happen in a second of lost concentration.
It was a good thing the customer stopped the other company as soon as she did in order to avoid this kind of unnecessary damage to more of her wood fence. We were able to pressure wash the rest of her fence for her without causing any damage. And the customer was able to seal her fresh, ‘live’ color fence a couple days later.
Related pages and articles
- Wood Fence Pressure Washing
- Pressure Washing Stains On A New Driveway (washonwheels.net)
- Pressure Washing A Concrete Spill At a New Home (washonwheels.net)
- Sidewalk Pressure Washing For A Special Advertising Campaign | Pressure Wash (washonwheels.net)
