Pressure Washing An Untreated Cedar Dock?

[mikeyd]

Hi everyone,

About 4 years ago I installed a 16X12 cedar dock at our cottage and never treated it. For the first year the sweet cedar smell was great but after the first winter it was obviously gone. The dock stays in the water all year and has faired pretty well with the ice conditions. Overall it has weathered naturally but you can't really tell it's a cedar dock anymore.

I was pressure washing the canoe over the weekend and some over spray brought out the natural cedar look again after it sprayed away all the dirt and grime.

QUESTION: If I pressure wash the whole dock to clean it and bring the cedar look back would that require me to now treat the wood going forward? I didn't initially treat it and just let weather naturally because I was told treating it once would require me to treat it each year. Power washing it once every 2 or 3 years is a far cry from treating it every season .... thoughts ?


Thanks

 

[btuser]

Its real hard on the wood. The best thing about treating the wood is the UV protection. By blasting off the top layers of fibers you're just giving the sun another crack at it.

 

[mayhem]

Don't pressure wash it. It'll blow a bunch of the wood fibers right out of there. Yes it'll look new again, but it will also be thinner, weaker and now eneven. Best bet is to wash it, sand if necessary, treat it wiht a prefinish restorer to bring hte luster back out and then apply a nice finish to it to preserve it. I'm in the middle or restoring my cedar deck ow and its a monumental job. I'm taking my time, disassembling everythign I can to clean, sand and treat every possible surface since i have no intention of having to do it over again on this scale.

Read this website, I got it from here when i had a simialr post a few months ago. Good info.

http://www.restore-a-deck.com/