Hi, I asked the group about this a few months ago and got some good advice. First I want you to know that I had a similar issue and my deck turned out great (thanks to everyone for the advice). A few pointers are:
- I tried to use just a scrub brush and the deck cleaner from Home Depot, it turned out half decent with allot of work however, not really good enough to stain and seal. I ended up power washing it & then it turned out very well.
- Note that power washing can and will cause damage to your deck if your not REAL careful. You can do a basic search on deck cleaning or deck refurbishing on one of the search engines and find some useful info. Suggest you research this and use Consumer Reports statistics for the type of stain and/or sealer you use. Also wouldn't try to save any money on the stain/sealer; get the good stuff.
- Last thing be careful with the siding, it's a PITA to get off. I used gas & it worked pretty well (didn't get much on it thankfully) and make sure you wear old clothes that you can throw away afterwards. Good luck.
I purchased a cheap electric power washer form Home Depot ($99.95 on sale). Chose this one because it is small and comes with a storage shelf. It did a good enough job that we could use semitransparent stain rather than solid as originally planned. We are very happy with the results.
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