Our team at Feel the pressure Uk provide dozens of professional patio cleaning services on a monthly basis, cleaning and restoring all different types of patio surfaces back to their original state, resulting in high end spotless finishes for all of our customers across London, Surrey and the South-East.
We were called out to provide a stone cleaning service in Cobham, Surrey KT11 for what we believed at the time was cleaning and restoring an old stone bench in the back of someones garden. But little did we know until arrival that the bench was actually over 40 foot, not so much a bench but a large seating area going around the edge of a 60 m2 patio made from Portland stone. The patios surface was in pretty bad condition, covered in all types of impurities and organic matter including algae, fungi and lichen with big black patches covering the surface and deep within the porous stone . It was definitely in need of a professional patio cleaning service / stone cleaning service by a professional team.
Cleaning a Portland stone patio in a condition like this one is not like your average patio cleaning service; certain steps have to be professionally taken to restore the colour deep within the stone. We started by steam cleaning the surface of the patio using the Doff superheated cleaning system, removing all surface dirt and organic matter. When supplying a patio steam cleaning service on a none porous stone such as block paving we would simply remove all surface dirt and stains from the surface by pressure washing then give it a good rinse over, but Portland stone patio cleaning is a lot more complex, the algae, fungi and whatever else inhabits the stone sinks deep within the pores like a sponge and because the stone is white colour it is very visible to see beneath the surface giving the appearance of big black and green puddles in the stone .
So how do we remove these stains and get the stone back to its original state, there are different methods depending on size, structure and so on, one method is to flood the stone, this is a long process that is normally used on large scale buildings, water sprinkler systems are put into place turning on and off over time ,flooding clean water into the stone and eventually flooding out the impurities but for smaller jobs including patio cleaning services we use a different method, using a mixture of sodium hypochlorite (liquid chlorine) and water, we brush it into the surface of the patio letting the porous stone naturally absorb it, once inside the liquid chlorine breaks down and attacks all impurities instantly, making the stone whiter ;we then give a good rinse adding copious amounts of water making sure we are diluting the mixture in the stone until its flooded pure.
Depending on how bad the staining is will determine how many applications are needed to restore the stonework back to its original state; in this case for the job in hand we used two applications, restoring the stonework in a single day delivering outstanding results for a very happy customer!
For more information regarding on our professional stone cleaning services or our patio cleaning services please contact us at anytime or visit our main services for a full list of options.
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