Teak deck - maintenance tips?

Bit of bathroom or kitchen spray cleaner and a deck brush ... brush across the grain ... rinse ... have a drink ... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Lifetime? Dunno .. sorry!
 
Quick precis of the advice I've been given by tcm

1) Don't be afraid to use a pressure washer. It cleans, raises the grain and gives a 'warm' finish

2) Ignore advice from people who say go across the grain. These are people who have already ruined their teak and want to drag you down into their club. Scrub vigorously along the grain, feels right.

3) Teak is tough. Don't be afraid to throw acid or vinegar all over twice a day

Believe me, we fitted a new teak deck last year and reckon it was good for 6 months
 
Teak decks

Loads of maintenance tips. in fact, there's enuf maintenance tips on teak deck to make sure you don't do any sailing at all.

First of all is the awful truth about teak decks and that is that they are secretly a bit stupid. Oh, they look great, and feel solid but really teak isn't a very hard wood at all. Leaving in a forest is fine but slicing it up and putting it face up reveals the weakness - it has hard bits (the ridges) and the soft bits (betwen the ridges)

The really quite good thing about teak is that it is not too slippery when wet. And it looks the biz.

Here some ideas of how to keep it looking fine. First of all it needs a clean.

You need to get hold of Wessex Chemicals on er wessexchemicals.com and buy their 2-part cleaner.

Second thing is to get the gear - a hose with a "soft" or "rain" setting (NOT hard blast) and a Surehhold brush thing but with a pad, not a brush, like a panscourer but - the softest you can find is best. You also need a massive wide blade wiper - get these from a janitorial suppliers places 8 or 12 inches wide.

First wet the decks by slooshing water over gently. No jet washers!

Then apply part1 at between 5 water:1 p1 to about 10water : p1 depending on how cacky it is. Most uk boats quite cacky. Rub it around as gently as poss. NOT with a sodding brush for crissakes! User that pad on a stick. The deck will go chocolate brown arg. Do not worry. Loads of cack is being released. Agitate all over. Ok, if really cacky and greenish you may need a brush but use a soft one, sideways to the grain.

Now rinse off the cack of P1 and tons of brown gunk will come off. Urg.

Now get ready with part 2. This bleaches back the dark brown to new looking teak. Use it about 8water:1part 2. You just sloosh it about and erk it looks as tho some of the splashes or bucket marks will styain it. Don't worry - it doesn't stain foever and you can't overbleach it- it won't ever look white. Keep going and lash the stuff around till the whole thing looks newish. Now rinse off GENTLY with hose. Help the thing dry by wiping with that big blade. Let it dry in the sun.

ok, so now you have new-looking teak. If there are a few grey bits that's where you missed with p1. The teak should look new,like at a boat show.

Ok, is it ridgy? I mean, is smooth underfoot? No?

That's cos EITHER it has been cleaned with a brush (don't do this ever again) or it has been left open to the elements and rain has hit the deck for months or years which is like a jetwash and digs out the soft bits.

Get some protective canvas covers made to protect the deck whilst you aren't on the boat. Holdem down with poppers where your feet won't hit them ouch. Most boats don't do this and hence most boat decks are ridgy and shite and knackered. Hey ho.

At any rate, let's return the deck to the condition it was when new. Flat. You need a power sander. Gawd, you can do some damage with these things. I saw poor mirabellaV was getting a biffing on the sanding dept only a year old. Try and protect the teak with those canvas covers so it doesn't need sanding so often. You only have so much thickness of teak to sand back.

A belt sander rips down material, but a vibrating/ orbital on 40-grit takes it down more gently. Stop when it's as you want it - it needn't be utterly new teak everywhere - the more you rip the thinner the deck.

A final sanding at 80grit is still smoothish, but you get finer 150 you can make it gleam if you are a bit sad or have a small deck.

Under no circumstances use oil or protective teak thingies, cos that's cheating and you'll look silly. Har har, he's put semwotsiit or oil on his teak. That's me shouting from the quayside and everyone else know if you have anything other than raw teak as it should be.

Once you have done the 2-part, you can keep it like that with a swoosh down using stongish solution of warm water and dishwasher powder. But if it goes grey, well, you didn't get the covers made didya?

The teak will also go grey if you walk on it. Dang.

So, clean the pontoon where you get on the boat. Use doormats, so you dont walk on it with filthy shoes, and get shoes dedicated to the boat.

And remeber that those superyots are "bare feet only" for everyone on board. And even *they* have ridgy teak or thin teak or new decks far too often cos amost no boat does everything listed here. But if they did, their teak wd last twice and long and look new every day.

Good luck.
 
Downside of not regularly cleaning?

I can understand that covering the deck will make it last longer but say I wasn't going to be bothered with covering it cos I use it each week and do not want to spend that extra hour taking the damn things off and putting them back on again..... does cleaning it with the part 1/2 stuff have any affect on its longevity?

My theory was to get 12mm teak laid (and yes in hindsight I should have saved my money but it does look nice) and hopefully that gives me anough thickness to sand every 5-10 years until it is someone else's problem. If cleaning makes it last longer then perhaps I could be encouraged to do that every now and then. Got pretty dirty down at geelong week with people walking all over it but even a few buckets of seawater and a sponge cleaned it up pretty good.
 
Re: Downside of not regularly cleaning?

Teak looks great when new but apart from that it's a pain. Lifetime? - a few years, which considering the cost of it in the first place is probably about 2k per year.
Sanding it will take a year off its life every time, easy.

Got screws in it? Why fill a perfectly good deck with thousands of place where water can get into the core?

I am going to strip my knackered teak off and put down some nice non-slip paint.

Do NOT fit a teak deck, IMHO
 
I tried a tip from a previous post which worked well. Clean with strong solution of dishwasher powder in warm water and rinse with malt vinegar. Did a trial area and now waiting for warmer weather to do the whole deck.
 
Lifespan depends upon thickness, uasge of boat & maintenance.
Our deck is 30yrs old , was originally 20mm, now 15mm in places after heavy use.
If you are on your boat all the time, best maintainance is rinse with salt water frequently; the teak will go grey but stay in good nick.
If you leave it for more than several days between rinses then you will get green decks. The more you clean this off, the more you wear the deck away. Hence the advice already given re sealants.
I cannot be at our boat regularly since it is 120 miles away. I cleaned the deck off and used the semco sealer from Onward Trading. Cleaning is a [--word removed--] of a job but only needs doing once if the deck is sealed every 6 months. The sealer is quick to apply - less than 1 hr on our 14m boat. It makes the teak look pretty new and water runs off it. SWMBO was indeed impressed.
There are other alternatives such as Coelan but then you'll lose the non-slip which is the best practical feature of the deck.
 
Can't add to the excellent maintenance advice other than to suggest you slosh a few buckets of salt water over the deck at every opportunity. My present boat has real teak decks (wooden boat) and they have lasted 35 years and might have another ten in them. My previous boat had teak overlay on a fibreglass deck and that is not something I'd consider again. I ripped it off, repaired the ruined core, filled the thousand holes and put Treadmaster down.
 
Below is the advice from Hallberg Rassy. I and many others have been using this method. It is really good. If you want to take a look at it on their site... it's in the free download manual. Anyway here it is

The teak deck
The teak deck is a part of your boats character. After a few weeks the teak will turn greyish, and a
smooth silvery grey deck is probably what most people like to see. The reality is often something quite
different.
You have probably already seen dark, dirty, sometimes mildewy teak decks. Mildew is something that is
more frequent today than some decades ago. You will find it not only on teak decks. It can be found on
concrete, piers, painted surfaces and so on. The presence might differ very locally, some areas suffer a lot
from mildew, and others are not hit at all. In the long run the best way to treat the teak deck against
mildew is to use Boracol. Boracol is a liquid that is uncoloured and thin like water. It is sold in normal
chemist shops and hardware dealers. It is marketed as a treatment against mildew for garden furniture.
Use a normal paintbrush and paint the deck with Boracol. Never use a normal brush on the teak! Do
the work on a dry dray. If it rains too much Boracol will be washed away. It does not matter if it is
drizzling the next day but if it rains the complete day it is no good. That would flush the Boracol way
too early. If it does not rain, spray the deck a little with water. This little amount of water only helps
the Boracol to penetrate into the teak. After three days you wash the deck with a sponge and cleaner, for
example green soap. Please do not be afraid if you do not see any positive result immediately. On the
contrary, the deck looks worse than it did before the treatment. After about ten days things will start to
happen. The mildew has disappeared and the deck is clean. The mildew will not recur for some time.
Do not be afraid to repeat the treatment now and then.

Good Cleaning
 
The secret...

The secret is not to clean the deck unless it's absolutely essential - and, if you have to clean it, be very gentle with it. Many people clean teak decks too frequently because they think the deck is dirty, when in fact the "dirt" they can see is a combination of mould and algae. Hallberg-Rassy recommend treating teak decks with Boracol, a timber preservative. I found it difficult to buy Boracol in the UK (although you can get it now from a few places, including here). But the active ingredients in Boracol are also in Polycell 3-in-1 Mould Killer (about £5 a litre from B&Q) albeit in slightly more dilute form. I simply brush a flood coat of this on my teak decks 2 or 3 times a year. It's very easy, and about 2 litres does my 35-footer. Been doing this for several years now, with good results, and it means I only need to actually clean the deck once or twice a year. I use the same liquid on my sprayhood and leather wheel rim, again with good results.
 
Re: Downside of not regularly cleaning?

The best thing to do would be to fit a Tek-Dek covering, there is virtually no maintenance and it will last for around 30 years plus before it starts to begin to deteriorate. Call me and I'll arrange for a quote if you like - 01243 432452
 
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