Welcome to Patio Cleaner Talk where you will find all types of wonderful, fast acting cleaners for your patio and path job. Have you ever cleaned your patio and had the chemical accidently kill all the plants growing around the it? I’ll help you with some sound advice and work with you on making your next cleaning project a big success. There is a patio cleaner that is a highly effective cleaner based on sodium percarbonate (oxygen bleach). When you mix this with water the it releases oxygen; which attaches and breaks down organic stains and dirt and it doesn’t attack plants. This oxygen bleach removes the sun faded, oxidized areas and can make your patio look like new. Most patio cleaners have ingredients that assist the cleaning solution boosting the performance of the oxygen bleach.

Pressure Washer Patio Cleaner

Pressure washing is usually enough to remove moss, those green stains you see as well as mildew stains that are usually black from brick and other patio surfaces. It’s a fact that results are better when the moss is actively growing, but you should be able to remove the stains even in cold weather. Don’t use a pressure higher than 3,000 psi or you may damage the brick. Using an good low-sudsing pressure washer patio cleaner will loosen up the dirt muck and the high pressure water will take the dirt away cleaning it deeply and helping to prevent moss and mildew from growing back.

Patio Furniture Cleaning

When it comes to patio furniture cleaning, having the right pressure cleaning equipment is vital. Don’t worry too much, because most home improvement and hardware stores now rent portable pressure cleaners and they are not difficult to use. I’ll discuss how to loosen up the dirt and grime by light spraying the furniture with good cleaner. Sometime later you will want to come back and blast that grime off with your pressure washer. However, here is where you can ruin perfectly good furniture. Make sure you use a lower pressure nozzle for your furniture so you don’t cut through fabric or plastics. And keep and eye on the runoff so it doesn’t get into your plants or lawn.

Concrete Patio Cleaner

Today, most of us are thinking CHLORINE-free. There are powerful nontoxic formulas that clean tough jobs yet are safe to use as a concrete patio cleaner. These revolutionary products won’t harm plants, people or pets and breaks down quickly into natural components after use. Over time exterior surfaces can become soiled with a variety of stains which include mold, fungus, mildew, algae, leaf tannins, dirt, grease and oil. Traditionally, products that use chlorine bleach, oxalic acid, petroleum solvents and phosphates have been used to do the cleaning and stain removal. While these products can be effective, they also can be very harmful to the environment, plants, grass, flowers and humans.

Patio Cleaning Products

Dirty decks and stained concrete patios are two different surfaces but cleaning them is not rocket science. It just requires preparation, some rental equipment, and sealant for the deck as well as the patio. You will need a high-quality pressure washer, which as I mentioned the home and garden stores rent by the hour or the day. Next you will need a quality wood or concrete cleaner. There are many chemical cleaners that can be used to clean a patio, some with extremely long names. But rather than researching chemicals you can simply purchase a premixed cleaner. Companies like Wolman, Zinsser, and Cabot all make patio cleaners and brighteners.

One of the challenges is getting the surface dry enough to put down a good sealer without it coming back up. Sealers make cleaning easier, but are not proper in all locations and so I’ll show you how to get what you have as clean as you can get it and keep it that way. What you may not realize is that concrete is more porous than you think and everything can stain it from mud to oil. If you do have stains, use a good concrete patio cleaner and rub it into the stain. Scrub it for a while to make sure the cleaner gets into the stain and concrete. Take a garden hose and rinse it off. But if that fails to get your stain out, then try a heavier solution of the concrete patio cleaner and let it sit. Some suggest using bleach and water, but I never had to go that route.

When you have a rust stain use this simple remedy. Take a one part vinegar to three parts of water and let that sit on the rust for a bit. Gently rub it into the stain and keep it on the stain for at least 20 minutes. When the time is up, again, take the garden hose and spray the area down. Your stain should come up with those solutions. But if they don’t, there is one other option you can try. We have discussed power or pressure washing before and this is one place you can use it. Many of the good concrete patio cleaners can be used with a pressure washer. You will need to mix your concrete patio cleaner according to the directions on the package. I go a little strong, and then use the uptake tube for the pressure washer. Start on the lowest pressure washing setting you can so that the soap solution is well dispersed onto the concrete.

Next, you’ll want to let that sit for 15 to 20 minutes. This is very hard to do if your patio is sitting in the sun. In this case, keep that low pressure spraying over the concrete every 5 minutes so it doesn’t dry out. Finally, adjust the pressure washer to the higher setting and blast those stains right off your patio, having the concrete patio cleaner soaked and done its job. You’ll find that the stains will come up and you can let that dry and if you’d like, get a good sealer for your clean, new patio surface.