Similar to cleaning pavers with muriatic acid, avoid an intense concentration of bleach, as it can damage the pavers.
Cleaning a patio with bleach is easy.
Whether your patio is sealed concrete or cement, or even sealed concrete pavers, a bleach and water solution makes it easy to clean away built up soil, stains from leaves and pollen, mold, mildew and algae.
Bleach: This alkaline solution may be effective for other household uses, but it can discolor concrete pavers that have been colored or stained.
First, you'll need to make sure that there's no run-off of the bleach onto any surrounding plant life. Plants that come into contact with bleach will die. Second, bleach isn't suitable for man-made concrete slabs – only natural paving stones. Bleach will fade artificial slabs over time.
Cleaning pavers with bicarbonate soda and vinegar
Fill the bucket with lukewarm water and then add the bicarbonate soda, making sure it dissolves properly. Then add a little bit of white vinegar. Pour the solution onto the stained areas on your paver surface and use the scrubbing brush to apply it thoroughly.
To clean paver slabs, you can use a detergent, such as Dawn, or a vinegar-water solution that is gentle enough to effectively clean without causing damage to your concrete pavers.
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.
Use Bleach
But that's not all; chlorine bleach can also be used for cleaning the concrete driveway. Of course, you should dilute it with equal parts of water or a 1:1 ratio. With the mixture ready, spray it on the driveway, allowing it to sit for 10 minutes. Then, use a stiff brush before rinsing with clean water.
Mix Solution of dish soap and water, and use a brush to scrub the pavers clean. Make sure to rinse the pavers thoroughly afterward. This process may need to be repeated for tough stains. A recommendation is to do this every few months.
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.
Whilst vinegar will not directly dissolve concrete itself, but it will degrade the cement that binds your concrete slabs or flags together. Extended exposure to vinegar will also cause any polish or sealant on your pavers to erode over time, leading to bleaching, stains and weathering.
As a gentler cleaner, bleach can't harm concrete's durable material. Aside from being an effective cleaner and stain remover, it also acts as a disinfectant to the concrete 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.
You can also choose to scrub your patio with oxygen bleach like OxiClean. Add two scoops of oxygen bleach to a gallon of water. Cover the bricks. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes.
Simply put, black stains on flagstones are caused by certain types of mold and mildew. These fungi find their way onto the stones either from their spores landing on the stones or from simply extending onto the stones from patches of mold or mildew right beside them—a pretty common occurrence for garden pavers.
Vinegar is a safe and effective mold removal solution, but if this method doesn't prove to be effective, then a heavier-duty weapon may be deployed: bleach. One cup of bleach mixed with a gallon of water should do the trick.
The mold on pavers problem occurs when algae and/or mold and other fungal types grow on damp or moisture-laden pavers. The answer is to eliminate the presence of moisture from underneath. Without moisture, the algae/mold cannot survive.
In fact, vinegar removes mold from concrete better than bleach. Bleach will only remove the top layer of mold, causing the mold to return.
When bleach is left to air dry on floors and is not rinsed away, it can leave behind bleach crystals after the bleach evaporates. Sodium hypochlorite will break down into salt and water when left to do so. Since undiluted bleach is mostly water to begin with, once the floor dries, salt crystals will be left behind.
Yes, you can pressure wash your pavers. But while using a pressure washer at a basic level is simple, ignorant and inexperienced users can easily damage their pavers by using a stream that's too powerful, by holding the wand too close to the pavers, or by falling into any number of other rookie mistakes.
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.
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.