LESLIE: Now we’ve got Rick in Pennsylvania who needs some help getting candle wax out of a wood deck. So was it an awesome party?
RICK: No, it was just a silly mistake. I was actually carrying a citronella candle and I dropped it and it splashed back on myself and the deck.
LESLIE: Well, are you OK?
RICK: Oh, yeah. Yeah, this was a couple weeks ago. I wasn’t. Wax all over me, in my eyes and it was not pleasant.
LESLIE: Oh, what a mess.
TOM: Oh, man. That was a mess.
RICK: Yeah.
TOM: Alright. So, it splashed all over the wood deck. It’s soaking into the wood, I presume?
RICK: Yeah, I scraped off what I could but a lot of it did go into the deck. It’s a brand-new deck and I did not seal it or stain it or anything. I was letting the wood dry.
TOM: Well, there is a trick of the trade for pulling wax out of wood that you could give a shot to.
LESLIE: Pulling wax out of anything.
TOM: Really anything, yeah.
LESLIE: If you get wax on fabric, a tablecloth, on your clothing, this is the way to get rid of it.
RICK: OK.
TOM: So what you’re going to want to do is get a clothes iron and a paper bag. And you put the paper bag over the deck and then you put the hot iron on top of the paper bag.
LESLIE: No steam. Just a hot iron.
TOM: Just a hot iron. And what it does is it melts the wax and it soaks up into the paper bag.
LESLIE: Yeah, somehow it magically sticks to the paper bag but not to anything else.
TOM: It sort of blots up, yeah. But just make sure it’s a paper bag and not a plastic bag or you’ll get the opposite result.
RICK: Right, right.
TOM: You’ll be calling for a bigger problem.
RICK: Yeah.
LESLIE: Yeah. And it can be a grocery-store bag or a lunch sack or a shopping bag. Like any kind of brown bag.
RICK: OK. And just melt it? I mean it’ll suck right up into the bag. Alright.
TOM: Now, I suspect that once you do that and you wait another season or so before you’re ready to stain or treat the deck, I would just wire-brush that area right over the – where the wax soaked in, before you stain. And I think it’ll just go right in there; I don’t think it’s going to block the stain. Those two tricks will help. OK?
RICK: I was kind of worried about that but yeah, well, great. I appreciate you guys helping me out.
TOM: You’re welcome, Rick. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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