3 Essential Steps to Cleaning Your Dock

Posted by ResistMist on October 31st, 2019

Wood docks enhance the aesthetic value of your outdoors. Wood docks are naturally beautiful, cost-effective, long-lasting and offer great strength. You can perform various outdoor activities such as boating, fishing, and swimming at a dock.

The only issue with wood docks is that over time, they rot, warp, splinter, crack and become damaged by insects. As wood is more vulnerable to water and requires to be cleaned and repaired regularly. You have to treat the wood dock with proper care and maintenance. 

A professional wood dock cleaner is an effective way to clean your wood deck but there are other important steps that you need to consider while cleaning your deck. 

1) Performing a Thorough Inspection  

Before you start the cleaning process, the first and foremost thing is to conduct an inspection. Check out for any loose boards, rotten boards, nail or screw heads sticking up and structural issues. If found any, then you need to replace any missing or rotten boards and secure loose nail or screw and continue. By doing so, you are certain to start your cleaning process. It also gives you a clear idea of how much wood dock cleaner you will need to purchase or use. 

2) Getting Rid of Algae, Mildew & other Stains

Clean off the mold, mildew and oil stains growing under the boating dock with a non-toxic dock cleaning solution. Make sure to stay away from using chlorine bleach as it contains harsh chemicals that corrode the wood fibers and discolor the wood. The best way to protect from these ugly stains is to clean your wood dock onset of intervals. Especially after long winters as it is not being used much in that time and become prey to bird droppings, black spots, mildew, and algae. 

3) Cleaning

When cleaning your wood dock, the goal should be to get the entire dock clean and not damaging the integrity of the wood to the maximum extent. Using environmentally safe dock cleaners would be an ideal choice. It is also important to not let the area of a dock ignored that is covered by attached boats. Clean all the necessary wood pieces you see when bringing the boat in or driving by. You might want to use pressure washers but it is better to not as they tend to lift off wood splinters and tiny metal flakes from bolts and fasteners, driving them into the water.

So, these are the main three points that need to be taken care of when cleaning your wood dock. Our recommendation, if done right is to clean and seal your dock every year.

Click here to connect with us to get the best wood dock cleaner to get your project started!