Pressure Washing: The Power Released

About a week ago my brother James (who currently resides with us) decided he was going to get a nice soapy bucket of water, grab a scrub brush and have at our deck in an attempt to transform it from desperately yucky to fabulously new. Well, it was a brisk sunny morning and James was full of cleaning gumption. For hours he fiercely scoured that deck, emptying my bottle of dish soap and then the good part of a bottle of bleach. After exhausting himself just in time to get ready for work, the deck did look quite nice. Much much brighter and not nearly as green. After ten-ish years of neglect the structure was grey-green with a caked on dirt that prevented anyone from looking through the cracks below. I, being a clean freak and proud Virgo, watched with much satisfaction as someone, other than myself, in the household was furiously cleaning something. In fact, it made me quite giddy. However, at the end of the day Rob said it wasn't quite done and not ready to stain. There was still, after hours of scrubbing, caked on grub. So, the next morning on James' day off, he announced that he was going to Home Depot to rent a power washer. Now, this had originally been my plan when we moved here, but after almost a year of other little projects and a shortage of spare cash, that had been put on the back burner. I have also discovered any amount of time to do these said projects is scare for me and Rob. Anyhoo, James rents his power washer and fills it with the appropriate amount of gas and fires her up. All I can say is that I was in sheer amazement at the difference in my deck. It looks like it was just built. Even after all that hard work he put into it, the power washer stripped away yet another layer of grime and we now have a bright, light, clean surface to stain. As for the labor, we did take turns at using the machine. No self-respecting clean-freak would pass up the opportunity to use a power washer. In addition to the deck, we also washed our old, weathered wood outdoor furniture. It's truly amazing what these man-made wonders can do for your outdoor cleaning needs. I highly recommend using one the next time you are motivated to do back-breaking outdoor scrubbing.