Salty ?

We have been cleaning wood for sometime now and never ran across this one. After stripping a deck. A salty like substance started to form on different spots around the deck.

Some on the rails and some on the floor. I figured it maybe from the stripper. I rinsed plenty and then neutralized. Then rinsed again. The salty like stuff starts to show when the wood starts drying.

Has anyone experienced this before?


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Dan Flynn
Flynn Service Pro
www.powerwash.net
708/715-4206

That happened to me before the only explanation I could come up with is the homeowner had cleaned the deck himself and didnt rinse the cleaner off.Since most cleaners are basically salt(sodium hydroxide,sodium hypochlorite...)I figured that it reverted back and sat inside the wood until I started cleaning it.After several rinses it finally went away.The substance I saw looked like salt but I didn't taste it.It was crystalline.

I don't belive this is caused by your cleaner. The white crystals you are finding sounds more like you are using oxalic acid to neutralize with. If this is the case, cut back on your mixture and be sure to rinse, rinse and rinse. We mix 1 1/2 pounds of oxalic to 5 gallons of warm water. Keep in mind that oxclic acid left on a surface, can effect your finish and cause premature failure.

Jim Bilyeu
Exterior Woodcare

It showed up before I used the oxalic. It might be the sodium hydroxide.

Like I said, I never had this problem before. But maybe I mixed the stripper to strong.

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Dan Flynn
Flynn Service Pro
www.powerwash.net
708/715-4206

Sorry Dan, I keep forgetting that most of you guys mix you own chemicals. Are you using the sodium hydroxcide crystels or liquid. When we were mixing our own, we used the liquid. We tried the crystels and even tho we used hot water to mix with, we found that there was times that some of the crystels would not desolve. This was one of the reasons other than the liability aspect that we decided to use industrial strip-x. Got rid of the product liability and have had no proplems with it.

Jim Bilyeu
Exterior Woodcare