Deck Cleaning in St. Clair Shores

No wood in the city works harder than the boards along the canals. A deck behind a ranch on the grid gets rain and shade. A deck or dock on the plats around the Nautical Mile gets wake splash, an east wind off the lake, and sun doubled by reflection off the water, and then it dries fast and soaks again. Every round swells and shrinks the grain a little further, the UV cooks the top layer into gray dead cellulose, and algae settles into the fuzz. That is why the dock is the grayest wood on the lot and the softest underfoot.

Composite decks skip the rot but not the biology. Lake humidity feeds mildew in the texture, and a green film on a composite dock is slick enough to put someone in the canal. Those surfaces wash on the same schedule as wood and skip the sealing step. Wood that has gone gray needs a wood-safe cleaner that kills the growth and lifts the dead fiber at rinse pressure, sometimes followed by a brightener that reopens the original color of the grain.

Decks here begin at $199, with the rate landing between $1 and $2 per square foot, and where a deck falls in that range depends on the condition of the boards and whether it needs a brightener pass. A canal-side deck that has not been washed in three summers sits at the top of that range, and a composite deck off a South Lake Schools street sits near the bottom. Cleaning is the first half of the job. The second half is the penetrating sealer that slows water uptake, and it goes on only after the wood has had a run of dry days, which on the water means a July or August window. Our crews are about 20 minutes away in Clinton Township.

The Furring Mistake

High pressure on weathered wood is the one mistake that cannot be undone. A rented machine tears through the gray layer into sound fiber and leaves a furred surface that holds water like a sponge, which speeds the rot it was meant to prevent. Sealing wood before it is dry traps water under the finish, and the sealer peels within a year. Skipping the brightener after a strong cleaner leaves the boards darkened and the new stain blotchy. Each of those shows up on the canals every summer, and each one costs more to correct than the wash would have.

Timing It Right

Late May through June is the cleaning window, once the boats are in at Jefferson Beach Marina and before the deck is in weekend use. Sealing wants the dry run of July and August, because canal-side wood holds moisture longer than inland boards and sealer over damp wood fails. A fall wash after the leaves come off the street trees is a reasonable second choice on the grid, but not on the water, where the fog season has started.