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Cleaning Patios

The garden is often regarded as the outside room of a home, and the patio is the area most used for entertainment and to enjoy the ambience created by the gardener’s hard work. Patios are often well used and over time their appearance becomes discoloured because of the elements and human traffic. The changes are imperceptible until you realise that your patio started out looking utterly different. In an ideal world we would be regularly washing down the flagstones to ensure that dirt and grime did not build up, but few of us are so well organised.

Preparing the Patio forCleaning 

To tackle the problem the first thing to do is to remove weeds and moss from between the slabs, some people leave the moss as it adds character. It is important to sweep the patio to get rid of surface debris, as any further cleaning would just be moving it around. Depending on the level of dirt it may be that a wash down with the garden hose may be sufficient but it may be that a more vigorous approach may be required.

How to clean a patio

If the garden hose is not sufficient then it may be an option to use a pressure washer. Whilst it is appealing to blast the dirt away and get it over with it may, if used inappropriately, damage the patio. The pressure washer should have a high water volume and lower pressure to reduce potential damage to the concrete or block paving. If possible an attachment can be used such as a rotawash or whirlaway which converts the spray via tubes which rotate to spread the pressurised water evenly over the surface. The tubes are contained within a cover which sometimes has a nylon skirt and the machine is operated on a similar principle to a hover mower.

The advantages of this system are that there is even cleaning and no overspray to ensure that the water goes on the patio and not on the operator! It may be that additional cleaning may be required using propriety stone cleaner, but in most cases this is not necessary. After cleaning the application of a stone sealant could be useful to make the next clean up a little easier.

For advice about the best way to clean your patio, talk to B&G Cleaning one of the country’s leading cleaning equipment suppliers.