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4 Surfaces Media Blasting Is Good for Cleaning

4 Surfaces Media Blasting Is Good for Cleaning

Sometimes soft washing or pressure washing just won’t cut it when restoring your exterior surfaces. While an excellent cleaning option for removing dirt, grime, and scummy buildup, it may not be as effective on those really tough stains, graffiti, or paint.

That’s where media blasting comes in handy. When restored by a professional team who can expertly choose the right media materials for your project, your surfaces can look brand new again.

The team at Clean ‘N Seal has a guide for some of the best uses for media blasting and how it can rejuvenate your exteriors quickly and easily.

1. Concrete

We do a lot on our concrete surfaces. From grilling on patios to leaking car oil on driveways, our daily lives leave our mark on concrete.

These heavy-duty stains add up over time and become harder to remove with just pressure washing. Media blasting effectively removes those stuck-on stains without harming your concrete surface.

Media blasting is also highly effective at removing old sealant from your concrete that is wearing thin and looking old, discolored, and dirty. In order to keep your concrete lasting longer and looking beautiful, media blast it professionally to give you a fresh start, and then clean and seal it properly.

Additionally, use media blasting for graffiti removal along concrete walls, driveways, and sidewalks. Media blasting quickly strips graffiti paint from concrete surfaces while maintaining the integrity of the concrete.

Types of Media Used for Concrete

For effective concrete media blasting, our skilled specialists prefer using these media:

  • Garnet: A good outdoor surface abrasive, garnet thoroughly removes tough coatings.

  • Crushed glass: Often the abrasive of choice when preparing concrete, this media produces a whiter, cleaner finish than other media materials.

2. Brick & Stone

For brick and stone surfaces, media blasting is an excellent way to remove heavy-duty stains and sealant and to prep the exterior for new sealant.

Even more impressive, though, is media blasting’s effectiveness at removing paint. When you’re tired of the painted brick or stone look and want to return to the original color and look of natural stone, media blasting is the safest, easiest, and most effective process to make that happen.

You can return your brick and stone surfaces to their natural beauty without using harmful chemicals that can negatively affect your family or the environment.

Types of Media Used for Brick & Stone

  • Crushed glass: This media uses recycled glass to strip sealants and stains from stone effectively.

  • Plastic grit: With strength and durability, plastic media holds up for multiple uses when cleaning brick and stone. 

3. Wood

Wood decks add extra outdoor space and extend the style of your home into your yard. Or maybe you have the classic log cabin home with well-kept, beautifully stained logs.

But when the wood stain fades or you change your home’s paint color, your wood surfaces may need an update, too. Media blasting your wood surfaces is your best choice for tough-to-remove paints, wood stains, and varnishes.

When performed professionally, media blasting safely returns decks and other wood surfaces to their natural state, where you can keep them natural or paint or restain the wood a new color.

Types of Media Used for Wood Surfaces

  • Sodium bicarbonate (soda blasting abrasive): Gentle enough to not harm wood but powerful enough to remove stains and paints. It’s the preferred choice for fire restoration because it absorbs smoke odors while removing soot.

  • Walnut shells: Like soda blasting, this media is strong but gentle for cleaning wood and less dusty than soda media.

4. Metal

Media blasting has a lot of effective uses when cleaning metal exterior surfaces. It removes rust and corrosion easily from buildings, vehicles, and boats without damaging the surface.

Media blasting even strips industrial-strength paints and coatings from metal surfaces without harming them. Despite its effective power, media blasting is also gentle enough to clean delicate metal detail work on structures. 

You can remove paint from a wrought iron fence without harsh chemicals, safely clean outdoor sculptures, and restore metal architectural features.

Types of Media Used for Metal

  • Mineral sands: Low-dust abrasives with less than 5% of silica per volume are good blasting media for large and small-scale metal projects.

  • Glass beads or crushed glass: Glass material is highly effective at removing rust and polishing metal. Glass beads are gentler for sensitive or intricate metal surfaces.

  • Plastic grit: Plastics are a durable, reusable alternative for polishing thin metal surfaces.

Choose Clean ‘N Seal for Professional Media Blasting in Minnesota

For an expert team who can improve any exterior surface, choose Clean ‘N Seal! With over a decade of media blasting and concrete and paver restoration, our team makes your home or business look new again.

Call today for a free consultation at 952-393-9588 or contact us online.