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.

Depending on how much furniture you have to clean you can make a big batch of patio furniture cleaning solution. I mix about one teaspoon of cleanser to a quart of water. Make sure your water is warm so you won’t have the solution separating. Mix it well, then find an empty spray bottle and fill it with your first batch. Before you start to use the cleaning solution, make sure your patio furniture is as clean as you can get it.

Using your newly created patio furniture cleaning solution spray down both sides of the cushions. Get a lot of the solution on so that it can soak in really well. If you really soak the cushions and the rest of the furniture now, it will be much easier to get off when you go to clean off the soap and grime later. I sprayed it on and then let it sit for about 15 to 20 minutes, about the same time I let the concentrate sit on the floor to clean that patio surface. Just makes sense to let it do its job and I tell you, it comes out a lot nicer and is easier to get clean when you do it this way.

You don’t want to pressure wash the cushions unless you use the pressure washer on a very light setting. So what I’m saying is that you can even use the garden hose to clean these off once the solution has been sitting for 15 minutes or so. It’s incredible how easily the grit comes off. And then, once you’re done with that, I set the cushions up on their side and let them just drip dry. If you can find a sunny spot, good. But if not, choose the best place that gets plenty of air circulating around. Don’t let them dry completely. I have one more trick that helps keep them clean.

To make patio furniture cleaning easier I wait until the cushions are still a tad damp and then spray them with a good fabric protector. There are several good fabric protectors on the market to keep the dampness out and the dirt from penetrating deep.

Remember to buy a good brand of patio furniture cleaning solution which can be made from high quality detergent. Then pick up some fabric protector to keep your job lasting until next spring or fall. It pays to use the right solution and protector so you won’t have to work so hard on your patio cleaning each year.

What I found it removed was the dirt, which I expected, but also the mold and mildew, which I thought would be an all-day chore. These soaps work great on wood and concrete and for cleaning patio furniture or cleaning lawn furniture, cleaning the kids playground equipment, and even cleaning my fence that was in dire need of cleaning. One pack makes about 3 gallons of soap and uses the short intake pipe to draw it into the pressure washer. The soaps I found were 100% biodegradable. This is important to me and I am glad most manufacturers are taking the time to consider this.

One thing I found is that the soaps do not leave a residue, so there isn’t a lot of clean up at all. Just washes right off with water. I will tell you what gave me best results with these as well, and that was to simply mixed up a bucket of the water and soap, then pressure spray it onto the surface that I wanted to clean. Next I would let that soak for a while, say 10 to 20 minutes. This proved good to loosen up any hard to clean up dirt and mildew. But I found this wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the hot sun. A few times the sun would dry out what I had already sprayed so I had to re-spray that, or simply keep it wet during the time I was soaping it up and letting it soak.

Finally, I took the highest pressure wash for my patio and sprayed the area to loosen up the dirt, then spraying it right off. This worked best and is how I recommend the pressure washer patio cleaner to work. Other trials included letting it sit for less time, but I found that I had to work harder on the pressure washing part to get the tough mold and mildew to come up as clean as the way to just let it sit for a while.

I hope these tips help you with your pressure washer patio cleaner and machine and that you can get up the dirt quickly and with as less work possible. If you are patient and let the soap sit for 20 minutes as I did, I believe you will have good results with this and won’t find a problem getting your patio very clean.