Patio Cleaning Altrincham
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Your patio is supposed to be the usable bit of your garden – where you put the BBQ, outdoor furniture, maybe a few pots if you’re into that sort of thing. But over time, it stops being usable. It gets slippery, unevenly coloured, patchy in places, and frankly, looks like a neglected corner of a park.
In Altrincham, this happens faster than you’d think. Our climate – with its generous rainfall, shade from trees (if you’ve got them), and general foot traffic means your patio turns into a biological experiment.
Moss, algae, lichen – they all thrive in this climate. The result? A surface that’s 90% plant life, 10% original stone (or concrete, or whatever it’s made of). Nobody wants to host a garden party on a surface that looks like a damp forest floor.
Why You Can’t Just Hose It Off
You can’t just sweep it away or rinse it with a hose. This stuff has established roots. Dust and pollution particles don’t just make your patio look grey – they bond chemically with the surface material over time.
On brick or concrete, this creates an ugly, rough texture that can’t be swept or hosed away. It’s not dirt; it’s a chemical reaction that’s altered the top layer of your material. This isn’t aesthetic; it’s degradation. The rougher the surface, the more it holds onto future dirt, the faster it deteriorates.
Leaf litter and bird droppings aren’t just messy – they’re acidic. When they break down, they lower the local pH around your paving. This isn’t a problem on granite (which is inert), but most patios in Altrincham are built from more reactive materials. Acidic conditions accelerate weathering of concrete, erode mortar, and stain natural stone irreversibly.
So what does this mean for you? It means that every year, without maintenance, your patio loses integrity. The joints widen, the slabs destabilise, the colours fade or darken unevenly.
You might get away with it for five-six years. By year seven, you’re looking at £3,000-£5,000 of remedial work (new slabs, re-laying, drainage fixes) that could’ve been £300-£500 of regular cleaning over that same period.
Re-laying a typical 20m² patio in Altrincham can cost around £1200-£2400. Our service extends that lifespan by 5-10 years, for a fraction of the cost.
The average Altrincham homeowner deals with this in one of three ways:
They ignore it. The patio gets progressively grim until it’s basically unusable.
You stop having friends over, stop putting the bins out there because you don’t want to walk on the slippery bits, and eventually it just becomes “that part of the garden we pretend doesn’t exist”.
They try to clean it themselves. You buy a stiff brush, some bleach from B&Q, and spend a Saturday morning on your hands and knees scrubbing.
Result? You get tired, your back hurts, and it still looks pretty awful. Bleach isn’t magic – it kills some stuff, but the root cause (embedded dirt, organic growth) stays put.
You’re left with a half-clean patio that looks like you’ve made an effort, but really haven’t solved the problem.
They call patio pressure washing and cleaning company in Altrincham. At Exterior Cleaning Pros, we’ve seen and worked on enough patios across South Manchester and North Cheshire to know exactly what the problem is, and exactly how to fix it.
Exterior Cleaning Pros Difference: We Solve the Root Problem, Not Just the Appearance
Most patio cleaning services in Altrincham offer a ‘pressure wash and go’. That’s because it’s quick, it’s visual, and it’s cheap for them to deliver. What they don’t tell you is that jet washing alone makes the problem worse long-term.
Here’s why: When you blast high-pressure water (typically 150-200 bar) at your patio, you do dislodge surface dirt – great. But you also:
- Drive water into those existing micro-cracks, accelerating freeze-thaw damage
- Strip away the top sealant (if your patio was ever treated properly)
- Compact moss/algae deeper into the surface pores (it’ll come back faster next time)
Our approach is different because we actually understand what’s going on beneath the surface, not quick fixes. We start by identifying what your patio is actually made of (not all stone is the same; not all concrete is either).
Then we select the right pre-treatment (not just water; often a pH-neutral biocide that kills organic growth before we touch it with water). Only then do we use a low-pressure, hot water extraction system that lifts dirt without forcing anything into the surface. We don’t stop there.
After cleaning, we offer (not insist on, offer) a breathable, UV-stable sealant tailored to your patio material. This isn’t to make it look ‘wet’ or ‘new’ – it’s to slow down the entire deterioration process we talked about earlier. A properly sealed patio sheds water, reduces organic growth by 70-80%, and makes future cleanings 50% faster (and cheaper).
Why Altrincham Trusts Exterior Cleaning Pros
Our team is fully insured for domestic and commercial exterior work.
All equipment is owned and maintained by us.
Nothing is hired last minute or patched together. And because we’re local and based in Altrincham, delays and no-shows don’t happen.
If we say we’re booked in, we’re booked in.
Drop us a message or call us on 07421-223460 to have you patio cleaned!
