Nothing beats a wooden fence for adding a comfortable and rustic feel to your home. They are strong, relatively cheap and can be used for a wide variety of different purposes from marking a boundary to providing privacy for your backyard hot tub. The only problem with wooden fencing is its vulnerability to the environment and its tendency to discolor due to mildew. If you do not use treated or sealed lumber then a wooden fence can deteriorate relatively quickly, especially if you live in the hot and humid conditions of the south.
When you have your wooden fencing properly sealed then it can stave off rot but mildew does not actually feed on the wood, it just lives on top of it. If you are tired of looking at a dreary fence then you can brighten the wood by killing existing fungus with a bleach mixture.
Using the proper mixture is very important but it is not a complex procedure and it is surprisingly inexpensive to purchase the ingredients needed. Get a bucket and pour in about two quarts of water. Warm water tends to work better than cold. Then mix in one quart of bleach and about .25 cups of dish washing detergent. Stir the contents together while making sure that you do not get any in your eyes.- If you have a garden sprayer, it is the perfect tool for this job. Just pour in the mixture and thoroughly coat the wooden fence. If you do not have access to a sprayer, a paint brush with stiff bristles will do just as well, it will just take you a lot longer.
- Your first instinct will be to leave the mixture on the fence for a while so that it can do its work but you need to wash it off within fifteen minutes. If you don’t, it may dry and leave the dirt and debris on the fence. So, take your hose and wash the entire fence from top to bottom. Once that’s done you may want to purchase some mildewcide. A coating of mildewcide can keep mildew from building up for years to come.
