Water and mild dish soap is a popular cleaning solution because it's easy to find at home and it won't damage brick, but it will tackle stains. The BIA recommends using hot water for surface cleaning with a detergent. White vinegar and water, another common household cleaner, can also be used on mildew.
Usually, hosing them down once a month is sufficient. Use soap and water, if the pavers are still dirty after sweeping and water hosing, make a solution of soap and water. You can use dish soap, laundry detergent, or any type of general-purpose cleaner. Never use bleach on your pavers, as it can damage the surface.
A solution of household bleach diluted 10:1 with water (10 parts water) can be used to remove many types of stains. Some of these include beverage stains, leaf, wood rot, and tobacco stains. Always test a small section of your patio before covering a large area.
Dish soaps are ideal for this job. While they feature surfactants that are able to remove tough grime like oil and grease, they are also safe enough to use on paving stones without compromising their integrity or appearance.
Use a specialist cleaner
Try a specialist cleaner like Wet & Forget, at Walmart, which you spray onto the surface of the paving and leave. It can also be used on steps, fountains, patio umbrellas and other smaller outdoor areas. It's bleach-free and non-acidic but will remove mold, moss and grime without any scrubbing.
White vinegar is good for cleaning pavers, though it's also acidic enough to erode the stones' surface. Diluted vinegar can be used safely to clean paving stones, though it should be used sparingly and infrequently to protect your paving from damage.
Can you power wash pavers? Power washing (also known as pressure washing) is also a very effective method by which you can remove dust deposits and various stains from your pavers. Just make sure that the water jet is not directed directly at the joints between the paving stones.
The pressure washer in combination with a dirt cutter is an excellent option. This removes not only weeds and moss from the surface, but also from indentations. Keeping up with this type of cleaning means that there is less time for weeds to grow. It also helps to maintain the beauty of the paving stones' surface.
Baking soda has low-abrasive properties, making it an excellent cleaning material for stuck-on grime and tough stains. Additionally, baking soda is absorbent, allowing it to absorb oils from the surface of the pavers, especially freshly oil spill on concrete pavers.
If vinegar does not work on your hardscape, you can use bleach. To create a powerful mold-killing mixture, you can add one cup of bleach to a gallon of water. However, you should exercise meticulous care and caution since bleach can discolor your brick pavers and thus ruin your precious hardscape.
Water and mild dish soap is a popular cleaning solution because it's easy to find at home and it won't damage brick, but it will tackle stains. The BIA recommends using hot water for surface cleaning with a detergent. White vinegar and water, another common household cleaner, can also be used on mildew.
Apply the Simple Green solution. Allow the product to soak for a minute or so on heavy soils and greasy spills. Scrub, if necessary. Scrubbing with a soft bristle brush or non-abrasive scrubbing pad provides agitation that will help to loosen soils and will ensure a thoroughly clean, residue free surface.
OxiClean is a powerful concrete cleaner that works well on various materials, including pavement and grout. This concentrated solution provides excellent cleaning without leaving residue.
Simple Green is one of the best cleaning products for dirty pavers. It doesn't have any harmful chemicals that could possibly warp your precious driveway. Less chemicals mean there's a less likely chance your paver stones will change to a weird-looking color.
Then, move to a household cleaner. A dish soap, like Dawn, is a safe place to start. The surfactants in dish soaps are designed to remove oil and grease, they're gentle enough to be used without issue on your pavers. In a bowl or bucket, mix the soap with water and pour it onto the stain and agitate.
Although bleach is great at the whitening effect, you can use peroxide to achieve this. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxygenated bleach. It is safe for plants, so when you rinse this solution, it won't harm anything. It works together with the dish soap and baking soda to remove dirt and whiten dirty concrete.
Try Concrete Stain
The simplest path to reviving tired pavers is to apply an acrylic-based semitransparent concrete stain, such as Behr Premium Semi-transparent Concrete Stain ($27/gal.; Home Depot) or Valspar Semi-transparent Concrete Stain ($28/gal.; Lowe's).
Dry brushing with or without application of clean sharp sand. OR High pressure water jetting with or without detergent. OR Apply fungicides. Use ordinary bleach or calcium chloride followed by sodium hypochlorite dissolved in water (1kg in 5 litres) then scrub with stiff brush.
You can use a pressure washer on your patio pavers if you want to clean stubborn stains or mildew from them. However, be very careful when doing this! Use a gentle spray and avoid letting the water run down the sides of your pavers, especially if they're set in the sand rather than mortar.
3) USE A CLEANER FIRST
I used a bleach-free pressure washer concentrate and sprayed it over each section to help loosen the grime before going at it with a higher pressure nozzle. It didn't take long to apply and helps get those stubborn mildew stains out.