Learned the hard way you can't just pressure wash old brick patio pavers

So I got this idea from a YouTube video last week to just blast my 12 year old brick patio with a pressure washer to make it look new again. The guy in the video made it look so easy, just spray and done. Well I borrowed my neighbor's 3000 psi unit and went to town on a Saturday morning. Turns out if the bricks are old and the sand between them is already loose, you'll just blow all that sand out and make the whole thing uneven. I ended up having to buy a bag of polymeric sand for like 15 bucks and spend another 3 hours sweeping it in and wetting it down. Has anyone else messed up their patio trying to clean it? What do you use to keep the joints from turning into weeds?

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adam_anderson61mo ago

Man what a mess. I've been down that exact road with my back patio. The worst part is that loose sand just turns into a mud pit the next time it rains. Polymeric sand fixed it for me too but you gotta make sure the joints are totally dry before you wet it down or it clumps up weird. One thing nobody told me is that you need to sweep off the excess sand real careful before you spray or you get this crusty film over the bricks that looks terrible. For keeping the weeds out I actually just started using pre emergent in the spring and it's made a huge difference. The polymeric sand helps a lot but it's not bulletproof especially if your patio gets a lot of shade and moisture like mine does.

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michael6931mo ago

Ngl I learned that crusty film lesson the hard way too. Had to power wash the whole thing and start over.

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