Just like the other parts of your house, your patio needs some regular maintenance. In fact, the patio is built in the exterior area which is exposed to harsh weather conditions. It will get dirty or even damaged overtimes if you neglect it.
If you think that cleaning a patio is best done using a pressure washer, you’re actually wrong. You can get your patio cleaned manually by using easily-available supplies and doing the steps all by yourself without hiring any pros.
Prepare these supplies and tools for this tutorial:
- Mild soap (like washing liquid)
- Warm water
- Hard-bristled brush
- Bleach (optional)
- Weedkiller (optional)
- Watering can (optional)
Let’s just keep scrolling to check out our quick guide on How to Clean Patio Slabs below!
How to Clean Patio Slabs
Remove the Weeds
The most visible (or annoying) thing that turns your patio into a complete mess is weeds. They can grow massively if you don’t remove them on a regular basis. Therefore, the rule of thumb is that you have to pull out the weeds immediately once you spot them on your patio before they take root underneath.
Cleaning the weeds actually depends on the severity of their invasion. If it’s still on a small scale, you can simply remove them with your hands, keep in mind to pull their roots as much as possible. When they almost take over the space of your patio, you might want to handle them by using weed killer.
Make your DIY solution
To start cleaning your patio, you can start by mixing mild soap with warm water. The washing liquid is a good option that you can choose. Grab a hard-bristled brush as the tool for this step.
You need to check the ingredients of the product since some materials may damage your patio slabs. For instance, acid can damage concrete paving, so you should avoid using cleaning products that contain that ingredient.
Pour the solution
If the dirty area that needs to get cleaned is quite large, you can simply pour the mixture of the soap and water. You might want to use a sprayer if you just need to clean a small area. However, before pouring the solution directly into the surface of your patio, it would be best if you test it on a smaller area first to see whether it’s sage for your patio slabs or not.
Once you are sure that the cleaning solution is safe, you can scrub the patio after pouring the solution onto the surface of your patio. Rinse the patio with clean water when you are done scrubbing the area. If you have a garden surrounding the patio, avoid wetting the area with the cleaning solution. To protect your eyes and hands, you can wear gloves and eye goggles.
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Brush the dirt
To ease the job, you can use a long broom handle to extend the length of the brush. By this way, you will need to use energy and can do the job standing up.
You will see that the dirt starts getting removed from the surface of your patio, keep brushing until you are sure enough that the top of the slabs is free of any dirt. To speed up the job, you might want to let your elbow grease out!
This brushing step is good regular maintenance that you can keep in mind since it can prevent the growth of weeds all around. It will block the weeds from growing further and even break the ones that start sprouting.
Rinse the soap
Once you are sure that you have removed the dirt with the brush, you can rinse the surface of the patio with clean water to see the result. The slabs should look shiner if you have successfully cleaned them, if you still see some dirt, you need to wait for a few hours and repeat brushing the patio.
Check the joints
When the patio is clean and dry, check the joints around. You might need to fill the gaps, especially if the joints are filled with sands. The cleaning steps above may remove some amount of the sand. Keep in mind that the joints of your patio work have such an important role to keep everything in place.
How to Clean Patio Slabs with Bleach
If you need further cleaning, using bleach is an option that you can consider. It can completely remove the weeds, moss, and algae. Even more, the use of bleach can also brighten up the look of your patio.
However, bleach is dangerous. You might want to avoid this step if the patio is surrounded by living plants. Bleach can also severely damage the man-made slabs, so it’s only suitable for natural paving stones.
Here’s what you can do:
Mix the materials
Start by mixing one part of bleach with five parts of water. Consider using a watering can instead of the bucket since it ease you to control the use of the bleach.
Use the solution
Evenly pour the bleach mixture onto the surface of your patio then brush until you see some foam. Wait for 15 minutes and rinse the area with clean water.
So those are the steps that you can do when you are planning on cleaning your beloved patio. Of course, you can use the tutorial on How to Clean Patio Slabs above as an ultimate reference to maintain your outdoor living space regularly in a very easy way. You don’t need to use sophisticated tools or fancy supplies.
As mentioned above, cleaning the patio with soapy water is suitable for you who want to go with a safer process. The cleaning solution is not that dangerous so you can do it easily.
Using bleach is kind of dangerous, it can instantly kill the plants around your patio or even further damage it if you don’t do the job carefully. You may also need to protect yourself properly when you use bleach to clean the patio.
So, let’s get your patio cleaned now!
