With Spring in the air many people are starting to look at their outside furniture and decking. After a few months of little use you might be looking to revive the look and feel of your wood ready for summer.
Wood is affected by UV light, moisture and drying and so needs an annual period of TLC in order to get it looking great again. So what to use for this TLC?
If you have a lot of green growth on the wood or surrounding stones and rocks then you may wish to remove this before starting any maintenance. Getting the moss, lichens etc off of the wood is especially important to allow further treatment to access all of the wood. We would recommend using Osmo’s Green Growth remover for this as it is biodegradable and safe to use.
If your chairs / tables / decking etc is looking dull and grey and you want to get it back to looking fresh and colourful again then the stuff to use is oxalic acid. Eco Home Centre sells this in the form of Osmo’s Wood Reviver / Power Gel. This is an easy to apply gel that you leave on the wood and then rinse off. Non polluting and biodegradable. This is a natural product
that is found in rhubarb and other plants like sorrell. It is much
stronger than acetic acid (3000 times so) and so perfect for cleaning
and renewing surfaces.
Once revived the wood can be treated with a range of products. At Eco Home Centre we recommend using products that work with the wood rather than against it. So again we recommend Osmo products like their Natural Oil Woodstain (for translucent wood colours), UV treatments, Wood Oils and Country Colour (for opaque finishes) ranges. Note that these treatments need to sit on fresh untreated wood (or wood that has had its original treatment weathered away completely).
For the best UV treatment we would recommend the coloured Woodstains or Wood Oils. The clear UV protector (420 or 410) is good, but isn’t able to give the longer term protection associated with a colour tint. If the wood is in a situation where it might be subject to rot or longer periods of dampness, we would recommend using the Wood Protector first. This is a water based product that soaks into the wood and protects against mould, rot etc. It must then be sealed in with a natural oil based product (like the Woodstains or Wood Oils). This system really stabilises the wood to give a great long term finish.
All wood requires an annual refresh and with Osmo products this is a quick and simple job that works with the wood naturally to give it the best finish you can get.
Most un-natural products tend to try and affect the wood by making it waterproof or by sealing it up. The Eco Home Centre believes in working with nature and by using its natural resources it can help the wood protect itself rather than trying to impose an un-natural solution that will ultimately fail. Osmo and other companies have recognised this fact but they are not so well known as other mainstream brands that use synthetic petrochemical solutions on natural wood.
