Neutralize???

Last week I washed a 6000 sq ft cedar shake siding on a commercia;l building. The new owners are trying to fix up the property that had been let go. I would guess this cedar siding had not been treated for over 10 years and it shows.
Anyway I cleaned it using bleach and low pressure rinse. Now iI have the opportunity to apply a clear UV protectant stain. Can anyone tell me if I will need to perform a neutralizing step before applying the protectant?

Why did you use bleach? To my knowledge bleach has no cleaning properties. Why didn't you use a product that is made to clean cedar? Check out www.thegrimescene.com and Beth can help you or you can check out www.rowlettpressure.com and Steve can help you out. To my knowledge bleach is not the proper chem. to apply to wood. I have never used bleach so I can't answer whether you need to apply anything else. I am sure though that someone will see this and let you know. Stop by here and ask questions before you do a job so you can do it right the first time. This will save you time and money and also it will help you to not destroy any ones property.

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Bleach does need neutralized

goalie1,



You need to neutralize the bleach mixture you used prior to appling any finish to the surface. Using an oxalic or citric based wood brightener will do the trick as well as brighten up the surface.

The problem with using bleach is it breaks down the lignin within the wood (lignin=the "glue" sorta speak that actually holds wood together). The properties of bleach on wood will also cause a finish to fail if left un-neutralized. Using an oxygen based bleach (no relation to chlorine type bleaches-sodium percarbonate based) type of product will yield better results with no additional damage to the wood.

If you have any questions feel free to email me.

Take Care,

Greg Rentschler
DeckGuide.com