Driveways and Patios Cleaned Without Scarring the Surface

Concrete looks tough, but its top layer is thin. The broom finish on a driveway or a walk is a fine layer of cement paste and sand sitting over the stone underneath, and a narrow tip held close will cut right through it. You can see the result on plenty of driveways: pale stripes, swirl marks, and patches where the gravel now shows because somebody chased a stain with too much pressure. Once that paste is gone it doesn't come back, and the rough surface holds dirt and soaks up water faster than it did before. So flatwork gets cleaned with a surface cleaner, a round hood with a spinning bar inside that holds the nozzles at a fixed height and passes over the concrete evenly. Edges and steps get finished with a wand held at a distance, and the whole area gets rinsed so there are no lines where one pass stopped and the next one started.

Winter leaves its own layer on all of this. From the first storm until the street sweepers come through, road salt and sand get tracked up the driveway and onto the walk, and the white film on the apron in March is dried salt mixed with fine grit. That comes off with a proper wash and rinse. What a wash can't fix is concrete that has already scaled, where the top has flaked away in patches after years of deicer and freezing and thawing. We tell you which one you have at the walkthrough. Stains work the same way. Fresh oil and leaf marks usually lift or fade a lot with the right cleaner. Old oil that soaked in long ago, rust from a sprinkler hitting the walk, and the orange spots fertilizer leaves behind each need their own treatment and may only lighten, and we say so before we start.

What the visit covers

• Sweep off loose debris and move planters, mats and furniture
• Cover door sills, garage door seals and low vents near the work
• Pre treat oil, leaf and organic stains before the main pass
• Clean flat concrete with a surface cleaner for an even finish
• Keep the pressure under what etches concrete or stone
• Wash pavers without digging the sand out of the joints
• Treat rust and fertilizer marks as a separate step if you want it
• Detail stone steps, stoops and edges by hand with a wand
• Rinse the whole area so no pass lines or residue stay behind
• Point out scaling, cracks, loose pavers and failed joints

Pavers, stone steps and what comes after the wash

Pavers need a lighter hand than a slab. The sand between them is what locks the whole field together, and a jet aimed straight down a joint will empty it in seconds. So pavers get washed with the surface cleaner kept moving and the wand held at a low angle, and any joints that open up get refilled. If the patio is due for new joint sand, polymeric sand goes in after the pavers have dried, then gets misted so it sets. Pavers also grow a white haze called efflorescence, which is salt coming up from inside the concrete. It looks like dirt, but water alone won't keep it away, and it needs its own cleaner. If a sealer is going on afterward, the wash comes first and the sealer waits until the pavers are dry all the way through.

Stone needs its own read. Granite steps take a wash well. Bluestone is built in thin layers, and high pressure aimed at an edge can lift a sheet right off the face, so it gets low pressure and a longer dwell time instead. Brick walks and older stoops have mortar joints that may already be soft, and a tight spray will wash out whatever mortar is still holding on. When the cleaning shows joints that have failed, or a step that has pitched back toward the house, that belongs to the masonry side of this company and you get a price for it on the same visit. The order matters here too. Repairs go first and the wash follows, because new mortar has to cure before water under pressure goes anywhere near it.