Pressure Washing: Benefits of Deck Cleaning
Aside from the obvious improvement of appearance that comes along with getting a dirty deck pressure washed, there are a lot of other benefits of deck cleaning you might not have considered. Check them out below!
Molds & Mildews
The wooden pores that make-up your deck are a breeding ground for molds and mildews. Living everywhere there’s moisture and all over the place outdoors, molds reproduce spores rapidly and constantly. Molds are essential for the environment because they help to breakdown plant matter that’s dead, but molds can be very unhealthy for people.
Molds spores are microscopic, and when they start reproducing on your deck, spores can easily travel into your home and start breeding there too. In fact, when mold spores make contact with any amount of moisture, it grows, and it loves to grow on things like food, paper, wood, as well as carpet.
Allergic reactions and headaches are a few of the milder health problems that can occur when people are exposed to mold. Prolonged exposure to toxic molds, however, can be much worse, leading to things like liver cancer.
The Myth of Bleach & Oxalic Acid
If you’ve ever read that bleach kills mold, that’s true, but the amount of bleach it would take to successfully clean a dirty deck also poses health risks to you, as well as being very unhealthy for the natural environment around your home.
Bleach has phosphates that are very bad for your yard soil, and everything that might be living in your soil, which can then travel into your water supply. Unless you want to bathe in bleach water or water your plants with bleach water, bleaching a deck is a bad idea all around.
Oxalic acid is no better, as it can be very harmful to the skin, eyes, and respiratory system.
Letting that greenish black stuff or other types of mold breed on your deck is scary business. Pressure washing is a safe way, environmentally friendly way to keep molds from setting-up house on your deck and spreading into your home.
A-Pro Pressure Washing is happy to provide professional pressure washing services for you and your family. Contact us today!