We recently finished a restoration of a very nice composite deck in Killiney, South County Dublin. Unfortunately, when it had been installed 10 years ago, the builder had felt that simply driving untreated timber into the earth would be sufficient.

Well, it was, for 7 or 8 years or so. Then, the water-logged timber supports started to rot, leading to dangerous, collapsing decking.

With a referral from colleagues, the new homeowners got in touch with us. Straight away we went out to have a look and this is what we found.

The composite decking before we started

This very expensive composite decking would normally be a great place for a family with two kids, one of them a toddler but this family had very valid concerns for the safety of their kids in the garden.

You can see where an access hatch had been installed to allow access to a manhole in the garden. All of the supporting timber below had rotted away leaving half of the hatch completely unsupported.

We agreed a price with the clients and got stuck in the following week.

We started by removing the perfect but dirty composite boards and laid them out systematically on the grass so that we would be able to return them in the order they came out.

This process revealed exactly how bad the rot had set in.

After we removed the composite decking planks

With the old timber removed into a large skip bag, we put down 40 concrete blocks to sit the new pressure treated timber supports on. These will keep the timber away from the bare earth below.

Once we replaced the wooden supports, we began to reinstall the decking

Using pressure treated timber, we rebuilt the supporting framework. We made sure to dip the newly cut ends in wood preservative for a couple of minutes before screwing together as this will make sure that water doesn’t get into the new timber prematurely.

After double checking our heights, we set about relaying the original decking boards.

Putting the boards back down went well as this was actually going to be one of the trickiest aspects of the job as the gaps between the boards had to match exactly with the old gaps. Luckily to help with this we were able to remove the lower part of the fence to allow the deck boards to sit neatly underneath, happily just fitting within a 2mm of the block wall behind the fencing.

We had also agreed with the client to replace some of the previously broken LED deck lights so we sourced new waterproof deck lights from Robus which fitted the holes exactly. While we were there we also rewired the old junction boxes since they wouldn’t be so easily accessible once the decking had been re-laid.

The amazing results after we replaced and cleaned the composite decking – Wow!

To finish, we brought in our petrol powered pressure washer and blasted the many years of dirt engrained in the decking. This really completed the job as it came up beautifully!

IF YOU HAVE COMPOSITE DECKING THAT NEEDS A REPAIR AND FACE LIFT, CALL US ON 01-6877727 TO SEE HOW WE CAN HELP!

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Professional Sandstone Cleaning Dublin

Last week we spent a couple of days up at a beautiful house in Kilternan, South Dublin. We were originally called in to clean the carpets and curtains as the owners are putting the house up for sale. Beyond our garden cleaning we also provide carpet cleaning through www.cleanmycarpet.ie and specialist curtain and upholstery cleaning through www.cleanmycurtains.ie

The owners wanted to improve the look of the front of the house as it’s the first thing you see as you come up the drive. We brought up our powerful pressure washer and did a test patch. They were amazed at the results and asked us to carry on.

The front steps are made of a concrete made to look like sandstone and the columns and the cornice are sandstone itself.  It had been 14 years since they were last cleaned so as you can see from the picture, they were pretty dirty.

We started by spending a few hours pressure washing the stonework to remove most of the dirt and grime. After which we sprayed the whole area with a specialised stone cleaner called STS (Stone, Tile & Safety Floor) which is available from www.cleaningwarehouse.ie

This highly concentrated heavy duty cleaner and degreaser can used for the cleaning both interior and external natural surfaces such as stone, terrazzo, marble, ceramic tile, fine stone tile, brick, grout, safety & non-slip safety flooring, etc.

It uses Micro-splitting technology which splits the soil binders without the use of enzymes, bacteria, alkaline builders, detergents, sodium hydroxide or volatile solvents. STS does not contain any reducing or oxidation agents such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide. It is an environmentally friendly cleaning solution which is harmless to wildlife and plant life.

After agitating the product into the stone and leaving it to work for a short while we used the pressure washer to remove it and even more of the ingrained soil.

The product had worked its way into the soft stone and split the dirt particles at a molecular level allowing us to remove even more dirt than before.

As you will see from the before and after images in this post, the results were spectacular!

The owners had asked that we keep a certain amount of grime on the cornice at the top to help it blend in with the rest of the house so we didn’t apply the cleaner there and you can really see the difference.

So, if you need any specialist cleaning in your garden or around your house, simply call us on 01-6877727 and we will be happy to offer you a free quotation.

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Building a Pet Enclosure

This is a good example of a practical dog pen / pet enclosure. The client has three cats and a small dog and was finding it difficult to deal with separating them, particularly at meal times.

We came around at one particular meal time to see how to rectify the situation.

The owner wanted to put the dog in the garden whilst feeding the cats indoors but with the dog around the cats weren’t so inclined to come in through the existing cat flap. We realised that we would have to build a “tunnel” to let the cats come and go freely so we came up with this rough design which we put together that evening and sent onto the client.

Note, the cat flap separated from the dog pen.

The client was over the moon with the design and was completely comfortable to go ahead with the build seeing as she could visualise the idea clearly from the images we sent.

The build went really well and we had the whole lot completed in just two days.

CHECK OUT THE OTHER “CLEANMY..” GROUP COMPANIES BELOW, TO COVER ALL YOUR NEEDS:

MOBILE CAR VALET AND CAR DETAILS SERVICES DUBLIN AND LEINSTER

ECO-FRIENDLY, NON-TOXIC CARPET CLEANING AND UPHOLSTERY CLEANING DUBLIN AND LEINSTER

ECO-FRIENDLY, NON-TOXIC CURTAIN CLEANING IN SITU IN YOUR HOME OR OFFICE DUBLIN AND LEINSTER

ECO-FRIENDLY, NON-TOXIC RUG CLEANING, SPECIALISTS IN ANTIQUE RUG CLEANING AND PERSIAN RUG CLEANING DUBLIN AND LEINSTER

HARDWOOD FLOOR CLEANING, MARBLE FLOOR CLEANING AND PROTECTION, STONE FLOOR CLEANING AND PROTECTION DUBLIN AND LEINSTER

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We don’t alter our photos – what you see is the amazing results we get with our own brand products!

THE CLEANING

We’ve just completed a clean and seal on a very large veranda in Killiney, South Dublin. The tiles are a beautiful blue/grey sandstone and the client was keen to get them deep cleaned and sealed before the summer. As mentioned on our Stone Paving page, it’s imperative that you clean these porous tiles with an extremely powerful pressure washer i.e., not electric.

A less powerful pressure washer will only do half the job and you will end up sealing in the remaining dirt.

When we arrived we could see a very obvious green slime over all of the tiles and a fair bit of algae growth too. When wet, the tiles were treacherous and we could see why we had been called out.

We immediately got out the washer and got stuck in…. 12 man hours later we were finished the cleaning! As I mentioned, this was a very large veranda.

THE SEALING

It’s very important that tiles are only sealed when they are bone dry. The sealant repels water, so any water on top or within the tile will affect the efficacy of the sealant. So, as the weather wasn’t on our side, we arranged to come back in a few days when the veranda was dry.

A few days later, and the weather was perfect so we arrived out and spent a couple of hours brushing off any dust and leaves before commencing with the application of the sealant.

Unfortunately, we noted that at one end of the veranda, there was a lot of bird droppings on our nice clean tiles so we had to break out the pressure washer again to remove them. This would mean that we would have to wait for another day until those tiles were dry again.

There was no extra charge for us to come back for another day, and though I’m sure that the client would have been none the wiser if we had simply scrubbed away the droppings (leaving residue) and then proceeded with the sealing; that’s not the way we operate. We exist solely on reputation, and we won’t cut corners to complete a job early.

We used a matt sealant on the tiles which is completely invisible when dry. The only way of telling that the tiles have been sealed is when the rain beads on the top of the tile.

As you can imagine, the client was thrilled with the quality of the job…. hopefully we’ll be back to do some more work soon.

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Decking Before and After

Wooden Deck install

We were called out recently to pressure wash, stain and protect a medium sized deck at a large rental property in Killiney, Co. Dublin. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we discovered that the deck was completely rotten and there was no point in starting the process as our petrol powered jet washer would have simply turned the wood into splinters.

The original decking before we started work

The wood that had been used didn’t seem to have been treated with any preservative and had been laid without any gaps between them. This caused water to pool between the boards which definitely lead to the rot setting in earlier than it should have.

We talked to the letting agent and quickly agreed on a price to replace all of the deck boards and a couple of the more rotten pieces of the supporting timbers.

As viewings were imminent and time was of the essence, we set about ordering the new pressure treated wood to be delivered the following day and we quickly got stuck into ripping out all of the old timber.

Ripping out the old wood

The following day the boards arrived and after strengthening the supporting timbers and treating them with wood preservative we set about laying down the new pressure treated wood. By the end of the day we had all the woodwork finished and the first coat of stain applied.

The first coat of wood stain is applied

The following morning we returned to apply the final coat of stain and tidy up the surrounding area.

The letting agent and the homeowner (who had been sent some photos) were thrilled with the restored wooden decking.  We’re sure that you will agree that the resulting deck looks fantastic!

The final stain has been applied – what a beautiful result!

So if you have decking in a similar condition and you thought it was beyond repair, or, you would like brand new decking built in your garden, don’t hesitate to contact CleanMyGarden.ie and we will be happy to give you a free estimate.

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