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Here’s what most people think “getting the patio ready” means: bring out or uncover the furniture, wipe down the table, put out the pillows and call it a day. Then, the first warm Saturday arrives, guests show up, and someone sits down and looks up to find Halloween-esque cobwebs. Yikes! And speaking of October, there’s that mossy stain on the pavers that’s been building since the fall…and the list of patio opening day frights goes on. Most spring patio prep focuses on getting ready to party, not on getting the important cleaning jobs done. So to kick off spring, here are five of those jobs—what to do, why it works, and exactly what to use.
1. Catch the Cobwebs Before Anything Else
Unless you want to hang out with spiders and contend with cobwebs, do this job first. Before anything gets set up on your patio or deck, the cobwebs have to go. Start high, work your way down, and emotionally prepare yourself from what (or who!) you might encounter. After a Canadian winter, the cobweb situation on any patio is worse than expected. There are also egg sacs. That’s all that needs to be said about that.
This Extendable Cobweb Duster with Extension Pole adjusts from 5 to 20 feet, which means eaves, rafters, fence posts, pergola corners, and outdoor light fixtures can be cleaned and all without a ladder. It features a lightweight pole and dense, upright bristles designed for sticky outdoor webs. Start at the top, sweep down, and hose off when done.
2. Flip the Furniture Over
Quick question: when was the last time the underside of a patio chair was cleaned? The joints where the legs meet the frame? The hollow tubes of metal furniture that collected moisture, debris, how about that wicker, and the grime from October through March?
The underside of outdoor furniture is where mold and moss loves to hang out. It’s where bugs and pests nest, where grime layers up season over season, and where the evidence of every freeze and every rainstorm accumulates. And no one remembers to clean this, which is exactly why it should be on the list.
Remove all cushions, flip every piece and scrub the underside properly. This Electric Spin Scrubber extends to 43 inches, so awkward angles are reachable without kneeling, bending, or touching anything too unpleasant. Use water and a heavy dose of dish soap, and level up to a mold and mildew cleaner (I’ve got you covered in just a minute!). The rotating brush head gets into joints, crevices, and wicker weave that a cloth will never actually clean. It’s cordless, IPX7 waterproof, and runs 90 minutes on a charge. This does the heavy scrubbing for you and all you need to do is rinse the furniture and let it dry in the sunshine.
3. Spray the Mildew and Walk Away
Every Canadian patio develops some version of this: the black and green staining on the concrete, mildew on the deck boards, algae creeping across the pavers. The usual approaches are scrubbing manually with bleach (exhausting, not the safest choice), blasting it with a pressure washer at the wrong PSI and etching the surface (expensive mistake), or just leaving it and hoping no one looks down. None of these are particularly good options.
There is a better approach, and it is so easy, it’s almost hard to believe.
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