It's just the way it goes. No sooner than you've finished that big painting job, or installed that new awning, but Mother Nature and the elements start in to leave a nice coating of their own: usually in the form of dust, dirt, mold, mildew, algae, or any of a host of other contaminants, dulling the quality of your labors.

Cleaner Surfaces Last Longer

While it may seem like that coating of dirt is only a cosmetic concern, think about this: a friend of mine, who happens to be a very successful painting contractor, once told me that the dirt build-up on the exterior paint on a house will actually shorten the life of a paint job. He felt that if homeowners would wash down that paint every couple of years, the ten-year paint job could be extended almost 50%. While we can't guarantee that's true for everyone, that same principle likely applies to a lot of outdoor surfaces, from siding and paint, to decking, furniture, awnings – you name it. Saving money – now that makes a good cleaning for all of your outdoor surfaces worthwhile!

For 2007, The Thompson's Company has a new cleaner you can use on a wide variety of outdoor surfaces – wood and composite decks, fences, concrete, masonry, brick, stucco, outdoor furniture, roofs, siding and some fabrics such as awnings and vinyl plastics. Thompson's® WaterSeal® Oxy Foaming Action Exterior Multi-Surface Cleaner is formulated as a chlorine free cleaner concentrate. When mixed and applied, the formula actually bubbles or foams on soiled surfaces. It will remove dirt, mildew, algae, and fungus stains, but it's biodegradable and gentle on the environment.

Fast, Easy and Safe

Here's how it works. Let's say you've got a big outdoor dinner party going on this weekend in your backyard. A quick look around shows the damage. The deck is dingy, the furniture is uninviting and the siding is sporting mildew. What should you do? Mix up a batch of Thompson's® WaterSeal® Oxy Foaming Action Exterior Multi-Surface Cleaner by adding six ounces of the crystals to a gallon of hot water. (Use eight ounces of cleaner for heavy soils.) If you mix it in a plastic pump-up garden sprayer, you can just spray it on any of those surfaces. If you don't have a sprayer, you can use a simple watering can. Once you've coated the surface to be cleaned, let it work for about 5-10 minutes. Scrub lightly with a stiff-bristle brush to remove all residue that does not immediately come up, then rinse with a garden hose with maximum nozzle pressure or a pressure washer at 1200 PSI with a wide spray pattern. Let the surface dry and that's that.

Now, there are times when another Thompson's® WaterSeal® cleaner may be better suited to your job. Thompson's® WaterSeal® Deck Wash is our cleaner for a deck that is dirty, gray and mildewed. If you have an existing coating on your deck, use Thompson's® WaterSeal® Heavy Duty Deck Cleaner to remove weathered clear waterproofers, tinted waterproofers or semi-transparent stains. Use Thompson's® WaterSeal® Maximum Strength Deck Stripper to remove a solid stain. If you have a deck that's made of a "high extractive wood" (woods with especially beautiful color, like redwood, cedar or mahogany), use Thompson's® WaterSeal® Deck Cleaner & Brightener. There's even Thompson's® WaterSeal® House Wash Concentrate, which comes in a bottle that can be attached to your garden hose, enabling you to clean dirt, soot, grime and stains, even from the second story ladder free. But if you want to bubble away dirt, mildew, algae and fungus stains on the double, clean up the "oxy" way – Thompson's® WaterSeal® Oxy Foaming Action Exterior Multi-Surface Cleaner.

- Jeff Wilson