Deck Cleaning & Restoration
Deck restoration Sydney: timber cleaned at low pressure, brightened to reverse UV greying, sanded where needed and oiled — grey coastal decks brought back to rich hardwood.
Eastern Suburbs living happens on decks — and the coastal conditions that make them worth having are exactly what wears them out. Salt, UV, damp shade and foot traffic turn oiled hardwood grey, feed black algae in the gaps, and leave boards looking a decade older than they are. Almost all of it is recoverable.
Why decks must never be pressure washed hard
High pressure on timber tears the soft grain out from between the harder growth rings, leaving a furred, roughened surface that splinters, holds dirt and drinks water faster than before. The damage doesn’t rinse off — it has to be sanded out. Decks are cleaned at low pressure with the right cleaner doing the work: a timber wash that lifts grime and kills the algae and mould in the grain and the board gaps.
The restoration sequence
- Clean. Low pressure, timber-specific cleaner, growth treated in the gaps where it actually lives. Composite boards get their own compatible process.
- Strip and brighten where boards have greyed or old coatings have failed. A timber brightener reverses UV greying and restores the original colour — the step that makes people say the deck looks new.
- Sand where the surface needs it: raised grain, splintering, flaking coatings or decades of neglect. Not every deck needs sanding; we’ll tell you honestly whether yours does.
- Oil. A penetrating decking oil feeds the timber, brings up the grain and blocks the UV and moisture that caused the greying. A cleaned deck left bare starts greying again within months — oiling is what locks the result in.
Coastal timber has a shorter clock
On decks in Bronte, Tamarama, Coogee and along the harbour, salt accelerates every part of this cycle: it holds moisture in the grain, feeds the algae, and breaks down oils faster. Coastal decks do best cleaned yearly and re-oiled every 12–24 months depending on exposure and traffic. Shaded decks add the slip factor — algae on smooth wet boards is genuinely dangerous, and treating it is safety work as much as presentation.
What we work on
Hardwood (spotted gum, blackbutt, merbau, ironbark), treated pine, composite decking, pool-side decks, stairs and balustrades, and commercial and strata deck areas — with the usual documentation where a committee needs it.
Get a fixed written quote
Itemised by surface, priced before we start, and never finished until you've walked the property with us.
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