Pressure Washing Wood Fences. How To FAST and Correct!

All right, here we go. We're going to get ready to do this fence. I'm going to be pressure washing this fence. I'm going to be using a rotating nozzle. Now, I get a lot of questions and comments when I use this nozzle. People saying, "You're just tearing up and damaging the fence." Now, I've been doing fences, uh, the method that I've been using for over 20 years now here in Idaho. The fences that we see, they're rough on cedar. I'm going to give you a close-up look at this fence. What it actually looks like, it's really rough cedar. You're not going to damage the wood. It actually strips this agitating nozzle strips the wood, gets off the previous coating, and makes the fence look absolutely amazing and brand new. So, we're not damaging the fence. Yeah, you can do damage with this nozzle if you don't know what you're doing if you get too close to the surface. We use this for uh pressure washing and power washing houses. Now, if you get too close, you could damage a house. But used properly, the circular motion, it actually agitates. It cleans a lot faster and it strips a lot better. Now, you could actually do damage with a flat nozzle or a straight nozzle if you get too close to the surface, too. So, it's just a matter of using your tools properly. So, I'm going to get get going on this fence. I got this side of it is um never been stained before, so it's going to be fast and easy stripping it, making it look good. The other side's been stained with a semi-transparent stain. Hopefully, we can be using a solid color stain. We got to check with a Subdivision CCNRs to see if we can do that. Solid color stains last about three times longer than semi-transparent stains. So, in the long run, it's going to save your client money because they're not going to have to redo their fence as often to keep it looking brand new. I've done solid color stains on fences 10 years later. They still look good here in Idaho. Now, I'm not going to be using any chemicals on the fence. Now, if you have an issue with mold and mildew, you could use like a bleach or a conditioner or brightener to clean the fence first. Put it put it on, allow it to clean and brighten, and then strip the fence. But, let's get on with the process cleaning this fence to make it look brand new again. All right, I'm going to get ready to start pressure washing. Couple things just to get your pressure washer primed. Kind of like an airless hose. Get all the air um or a airless sprayer. Get all the air out of it first and um it'll actually get going a lot faster. So, I've got my hose pressure washer almost primed. I'm going to be using I like wearing gloves and I also do wear eye protection. So, I've got my uh safety glasses on and I'll begin pressure washing. Now, uh, pulling the start, just make sure you're pulling the trigger, and it's a lot easier to start your pressure washer. All right, we're just cruising right along doing the pressure washing. And I'm going to give you some tips and tricks pressure washing. Now, the backside of this is extremely gray and um kind of black and it's stripping pretty fast. What you don't want to do is strip sideways. If your pickets are going up and down, you want to strip up and down. Otherwise, if you're doing a semi-transparent stain, you're probably going to see uh the cross striping or the cross-hatching of where you're stripping and um pressure washing. So, always go with the grain, with the pickets. I'm going up and down. I'm trying to do it and up the picket, down the picket, have it completely stripped, and then moving on to the next picket. On the opposite side, I'm shooting at an angle because I don't want to be shooting directly at the house, getting wood fibers all over the house. But, we'll actually just if we need to clean the side of the house after we're done pressure washing the fence. Now I'm pressure washing, stripping one side, going back, stripping the other side, and then going back and cleaning the opposite side that throws fibers on the other side. Now I've got um gap, big gaps in between the pickets, so I got to do the edges of it, too. We are going to be doing this fence in a solid color stain. So the opposite side, which was stained probably two years ago, um it you can't strip that off. So, it's going to look a lot better if it's done with a solid color stained. I like doing solid color stains once a fence has been stained multiple times and it won't look like new and natural if it hasn't been maintained and maintained very well. Just kind of interesting. This fence wasn't done very well. Only one side of it was done and not the opposite side, which is kind of um adding to the dilemma. But it's stripping really quick. We're cruising right along. Once again, I don't use any chemicals, any type of strippers, any kind of um conditioners or anything. I just don't like using that around customers plants, um the grass, the house, and stuff like that. I know a lot of them are environmentally uh safe and sensitive, but um I just like doing it with just water alone. Thought maybe some people might question. We are doing a solid color stain on this and you know, why the heck are we stripping it, stripping all this gray and black off and and um all this old wood? And you know, if you're just going to go over it, it right with a solid color stain because you're not going to see any of that stuff. It's going to cover it all. Well, taking off all this um this loose wood fibers and all this black and grain. This is going to help the penetration of the product and the adhesion of the product that we're going to be putting on. So, we want to get down to a nice good sound surface, not one that's extremely dry and flaky. So, you want to strip this, clean it really good, and then begin the staining process. All right, we got the suspen all pressure washed now. Now we're going to get ready to do the staining. We're going to come back tomorrow. So, if you want to see this thing look brand new again, stay with us.