You’re hosting a backyard BBQ this weekend, and your spice rub is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. It seems like everything will go off without a hitch — and yet there’s one important detail you may have forgotten to consider. The backyard is a total mess!

Are you interested in learning more about Homemade Outdoor Furniture Cleaner? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!

Try these DIY ideas for cleaning patio furniture before your next backyard bash.

Outdoor Furniture Cleaner DIY Ideas

Can’t remember the last time you cleaned your outdoor furniture? There are many tried and true (and do-it-yourself) methods for sprucing up your patio set. Here are some of the best ways to clean on a budget while still achieving amazing results.

How to Clean Wood Outdoor Furniture

If your wood furniture needs a little TLC, there are a few different routes you can take. For a light cleaning, use mild dish soap with a bit of warm water. Moisten a cloth with this mixture, wipe down your table and chairs, and watch the dirt melt away.

When you have aggressive grime, you’re better off using a soft brush and some diluted dishwasher detergent or oxygenated bleach. Or, if you’d prefer a gentler cleaning solution, ½ cup white vinegar mixed with ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil can work wonders on wood, as well.

Another option for those with wicker furniture is to grab a garden hose. Place the setting on medium pressure, and blast away any dirt hiding between those tricky cracks and crevices. With this quick and efficient approach, your guests will believe you’ve spent all day making your furniture shine.

How to Clean Metal Outdoor Furniture

Metal is a popular choice for outdoor furniture thanks to its incredible durability and ease of maintenance. If you have metal pieces — like wrought iron furniture — you can make them look ‘like new’ with a sponge or scrub brush and some mild dish soap (plus water).

Alternatively, if you’re dealing with rust, you can use steel wool to buff out the furniture in question. Just grab a handful of steel wool and move it in small, circular motions over each patch of rust. This will clean things up in a snap without causing damage to your furniture.

How to Clean Plastic Outdoor Furniture

Plastic patio furniture might be one of the easiest materials to clean. To make a great DIY outdoor furniture cleaner, mix a ½ cup of baking soda with one gallon of warm water. Simply fill a spray bottle with this concoction and apply it to every surface. Use a rag or cloth to wipe everything down, and then watch as it glistens in the sun.

A second option for plastic furniture is to use ¼ cup of white vinegar and one quart of warm water. This works exceptionally well for colored plastic, as does a sprinkle of baking soda on a wet sponge. Either way, it’s in your best interest to avoid abrasive cleaners and/or bleach substances; chemicals like these tend to eat away at plastic.

How to Clean Glass Outdoor Furniture

Glass patio tables make a beautiful focal point in backyard setups. To keep your table looking shiny and streak-free, spray the surface with white vinegar or a conventional glass cleaner (if you have some lying around at home). Once the glass is wet, use a clean, microfiber cloth to wipe away excess dirt and stuck-on smudges.

Keep in mind, the best way to protect your glass furniture is by placing a cover over it when not in use. An outdoor furniture cover keeps glass from collecting grime and makes your job a lot easier when hosting guests on the patio.

How to Clean Outdoor Furniture Cushions

Outdoor cushions can really up the cozy factor of your furniture — but they’ll also require a bit more upkeep. Some outdoor cushions have removable covers you can toss in the washing machine. Follow the manufacturer’s washing instructions, and then allow for a few hours of air drying before you put the covers back on.

When your cushion covers aren’t removable, you can give them a quick refresh with a DIY cleaning solution and your garden hose. First, lay the cushions out on your patio where they can’t pick up any new stains. Next, mix one tablespoon of dish detergent with ¼ cup Borax in a small bucket of water.

Dip a scrub brush in your bucket and scour the front and back of each cushion, concentrating on areas with obvious stains. Let that solution soak in for about five minutes, and then use your garden hose (on medium pressure) to give things a good rinse. Finally, squeeze out the excess water and prop up the cushions in a sunny spot where they can finish air drying.

Refresh your Patio Furniture with Rent-A-Center

If you’ve followed our suggestions but DIY cleaning just isn’t cutting it, it might be time to invest in a new outdoor set. Many nearby Rent-A-Center locations have great outdoor furniture options at affordable prices you’ll love. Plus, with our online ordering and same-day delivery**, you can shop now and transform your backyard in virtually no time at all.

What are you waiting for? Check out Rent-A-Center today, and make your patio the place to be this summer.

Are you wondering if pressure washing is really worth it for your home or business? After all, you have a garden hose and can spray down the outside of your building yourself if that’s all it comes down to, right?

Wait just a moment, there!

We’re here to tell you that pressure washing has so many more benefits than most people suspect. It’s not just about rinsing a little dirt off your siding, and you definitely can’t do it with a garden hose.

Pressure washing provides a thorough, deep cleaning that is a lot more necessary than you might think—it’s not all looks, though appearance is important too. A good cleaning can prevent damage to your home or business and even help keep your family or employees safe and healthy.

This guide will cover 12 reasons why you really do need professional pressure washing for your house or commercial property. But first, let’s talk about what it actually is.

What is Pressure Washing?

Simply put, it is the use of high-powered jets of water to clean mud, dust, grime, loose paint, moss, algae, and other residue from surfaces.

The “pressure” part is what makes it so much more effective than just regular washing with water and elbow grease, as well as the ability for the jets of water to reach into tiny nooks and crannies and blast out all the dirt hiding out of sight. The washers produce pressures from 750 to 30,000 pound-force per square inch, or psi. (For comparison, the average force from a home water faucet is about 40 to 60 psi.)

Pressurized washers can be used to clean surfaces such as:

• Siding
• Decks
• Driveways
• Patios
• Gutters
• Roofs
• Sidewalks
• Parking lots
• Fencing
• Vehicles
• Lawn mowers
• Outdoor furniture
• Grills

Why You Need Pressure Washing

Now that we’ve covered what pressure washing is and what you can use it for, let’s dive into the reasons why you need it for your home or business property.

1: Prevents Damage

What harm can some grime and moss do to a house? It turns out… a lot. Dirt, moss, grime, and other substances that build up on your building or outdoor items can eat away at surfaces, causing corrosion. They not only damage paint, concrete sealant, and other surface coatings, they can actually cause damage to the materials underneath, like your vinyl siding or the wood of your deck.

The damage doesn’t just affect surfaces, because once surface coatings and materials start to break down, they leave everything underneath them vulnerable to damage as well. That means the interior of your walls can be exposed to moisture, vermin, and other intruders that can cause serious problems with the structure of the building and cause you a lot of discomforts.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Cost-Effective Chair Made in China.

Additional resources:
When did the coffee table come out?

Dirt and other substances also tend to build up in the small crevices that every building has. Out of sight and out of reach of the rain and wind, the grime can accumulate for years until crevices are packed with bacterial breeding grounds.

Pressurized washing lifts dirt, grime, moss, and other substances off your surfaces, and it also gets into even the tiniest crevices to blast out everything that has built up over time, stopping the damage before it has a chance to really take hold and create a major headache for the property owner.

2: Saves Money

After learning about the damage that can be stopped in its tracks with a good wash, it makes sense that pressure washing also saves you a lot of money by preventing damage.

Having your home or business washed on a regular basis is far less expensive than repairing the damage that can result from letting the dirt and grime build-up. Pressure washing is preventative maintenance, and you know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

3: Saves Time and Energy

Your time is precious, so this is a significant benefit. You may be convinced that cleaning your building’s exterior is important, but why should you use pressure washing in particular? The amount of time and effort you save with a pressure washer, instead of trying to clean your items or buildings manually, is truly impressive.

Imagine getting yourself a long-handled sponge mop and a bucket of water and going outside to spend your weekend scrubbing away at outside of your house. You would get an excellent arm workout, so that’s good, but you might not even be able to finish the entire thing in a couple of days. Not to mention that all that time and hard work would pretty much be for nothing since there’s no way manual washing can be as effective and thorough as cleaning with a pressure washer.

The amount of time it would take to pressure wash your building depends on a lot of factors such as the size of your home or business, the number of people working on the washing, and how accessible all parts of the exterior are. But, it’s safe to say that even a large house could probably be completed within a few hours, and smaller surfaces could be looking like new within 30 minutes.

4: Cleaner is Safer

We all know that good hygiene is important to maintaining our health, but many people don’t realize that the cleanliness of exterior surfaces around our homes and workplaces can also have a direct impact on the health and safety of our families, employees, and even our pets.

Dirt and grime build-up provides the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and vermin, which are notorious for carrying disease. And, if the damage is allowed to spread, it can leave the interior of your building vulnerable to spores that can cause illness.

Pressurized washing removes the threat of disease-causing bacteria and creates an environment that is less hospitable to vermin, protecting the safety of everyone in the building. It also removes built-up pollen from your surfaces, so if you or anyone you know suffers from pollen allergies, pressure washing can help reduce their allergy suffering.

5: Boosts Your Curb Appeal

We’ve explained that pressure washing isn’t all about appearances by any means, but it definitely bears mentioning that it can have a dramatic effect on the look of your home and business.

It’s actually shocking how much of a visual difference there is before and after using a pressurized washer. Don’t believe us? Hop on over to YouTube and search “pressure washing;” you’ll find hundreds of videos and even whole channels dedicated to pressure washing because people love to see the drastic and satisfying change as a surface is a pressure washed.

If you have a brick pathway covered in moss and dirt, or siding that’s covered in grime, you might not even know what color they truly are until after they get a good wash. They’ll literally be looking brand new again, which boosts your curb appeal considerably.

Curb appeal is important for homes, but it’s doubly important for businesses—fair or not, a lot of people will judge the quality of your goods or services by the appearance of your building, so boosting the curb appeal of your commercial property can actually increase your business.

6: Increases the Value of Your Home

If you’re thinking of selling your home, you’re probably looking for ways to increase its value. Pressurized washing is an inexpensive and effective way to do just that. When prospective buyers show up and see a thick coating of dirt on everything, they assume the home is in poor shape and not worth much. But if the first thing they see is clean, gleaming surfaces that look brand new, they’ll have no reason to suspect that your home is worth less than top dollar.

7: Primes Surfaces for Renovation

Considering sprucing up your building with a new coat of paint, or a more drastic change like new siding or even an addition? Before you start renovations on the exterior of your home or business, it’s a good idea to get it washed first.

As you know, you can’t just slap paint down on a dirty surface. Besides basic cleaning, pressurized washing is also capable of removing loose or peeling paint as well, leaving you with a smooth, primed surface to work on.

Why You Should Let the Pros Handle Pressure Washing

By now, we’ve hopefully given you some information that helped you see why pressure washing is so important for your home or business. You may be thinking of giving it a try yourself, but it’s the type of thing that is really better handled by professionals such as the friendly team at Mr. Handyman of West Knoxville. The following benefits will explain why pressure washing is a job for experienced hands.

9: Access to the Correct Equipment

Chances are, you don’t have a pressure washer just lying around ready to use. Sure, you could rent one, but that’s an expensive hassle and also very time-consuming. You’d have to find one to rent, pick it up, learn the basics of using it, complete your task, fill it back up with gas, and return it—all within one business day if you don’t want to incur extra charges.

On the other hand, a professional handyman already has the best equipment for the job and knows how to use it. He’ll arrive with the pressure washer ready to go and clear it away at the end of the day, no fuss necessary on your part.

10: Environmentally Friendly

Pressure washing has the potential to be hard on the environment for a couple of reasons: it uses a lot of water, it can involve soap and other cleaning chemicals that aren’t good for the soil, and it can rinse grime, grease, and other pollutants onto the ground or into the sewer.

A professional handyman such as the experts at Mr. Handyman will take care to minimize the impact to the environment with techniques that reduce water usage and avoid harmful chemicals. This protects not only the soil and plants nearby, but also wild animals and pets that may come in contact with pressure washer run-off.

11: Avoid Damage to Surfaces

Though pressure washing is a key way to prevent damage from grime and dirt build-up, pressure washers themselves can actually cause damage to surfaces if the user is inexperienced. This is because pressure washers are capable of a range of pressures and you’ll need to know the correct settings to use on the material you’re washing or you could cause scratches, chips, or even worse with the washer itself.

Professional handymen have the know-how