“Do you have any advice for treating bleach stained wood worktops? I accidentally spilt some whilst cleaning the sink at the weekend and we now have a lighter patch.”

Answer

I’m sorry to hear your kitchen worktops were stained by a spillage of bleach. As you may have realised, bleach tends to stain or permanently lighten most natural materials that it comes into contact with, so there may not be an easy solution to returning your worktops to their former glory.

Before trying anything else, we would recommend that you sand the entire surface of the worktop significantly to remove the top layer of treatment and the timber that has been discoloured by the bleach.

You may have to remove as much as 10% of the thickness of the bleach-stained wood in order to get down to “fresh” timber that can then be re-treated. We would recommend using Osmo Top Oil to give the surface a food-safe finish.

Further information on treating stained worktops can be found in our ‘Removing Stains and Discolouration on Wooden Work Surfaces’ information guide.

Unfortunately, even with this amount of material removed, you may still find that the bleach has penetrated quite deeply into the wood if it was not being adequately protected by an oil or other treatment when the incident occurred.

In this instance, your only option may be to totally replace the surface with a new wooden worktop.

New worktops can be ordered via our Online Bespoke Worktop Tool, or directly with our fabrication team via telephone or email.

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