So you bought the best artificial grass thinking it was maintenance free :D. Then your doggy decided to do a wee or worse. Perhaps you’ve got a load of dirt in your artificial grass from simply months of the kids running muck all over it. It could even be that you’re trees have nuked the lawn as well. Don’t worry, artificial grass is pretty resilient, especially luxury artificial grass. There’s much we can do to put this right before you start thinking about the crazy costs of replacing your artificial lawn and some don’t cost much at all.
How to clean artificial grass
What tools and materials you’ll need to clean up your artificial as well as what tools would be a real bonus:
– A stiff broom
– Dustpan and brush
– Rubble sacks
– Rake
– Disinfectant
– Hose pipe or expandable hose (I use my automatic hose reel).
The bonus tools that’ll make this a breeze:
– Petrol leaf blower
– Petrol pressure washer or cordless pressure washer.
– Pressure washer detergent
Let’s go through some of the cleaning problems you’re going to encounter:
How to clean artificial grass dog urine
The thing about dog wee is the obscurity and knowing where the wee is. The only giveaway is the nasty smell. The best way to tackle this issue is tea towels if you’ve caught your dog wee still wet! Then go with a bit of diluted vinegar. Before doing so, test a patch in the corner of your grass and leave both disinfectant and the vinegar overnight to ensure there is no staining to your artificial lawn. The last thing you want tot do is damage the lawn trying to get rid of a bad smell
Once you’re sure you can then apply disinfectant and vinegar. Again, mop this up. Now it’s time to turn on the hosepipe (an automatic hose reel is a real time saver) and really flood the area to dilute any remaining dog wee. This is the most sympathetic way of going about it. You can also turn on the petrol pressure washer as well. Again do a test patch to make sure it doesn’t do any damage on a lower setting. You might also want to try with your cordless pressure washer first too. This is probably a good balance of power and usability. You’re unlikely to do much harm with 22 bar of pressure but it should still clean up nicely.
How to clean artificial grass dog poo
Never never smudge it in. Pickup any hard droppings first, then get tea towels and get anything else that may be remaining. At this point you want to use a disinfectant and make your lawn hygienic. Give it ten minutes to soak in then go again at it with more tea towels. No question, you want to completely clean and wash your artificial lawn and push run off water into flower beds or the drain. You might well be able to take advantage off a pressure washer detergent – most will be clear about whether they can be used on an artificial lawn.
You may need to make use of a stiff broom. If you do, make sure that ends up disinfected as well. I keep one old broom aside for all the nasty jobs but I always give it a blast off down the drain with a petrol pressure washer when I am finished. Be sure to aim at the broom from an angle that won’t fire the water all back up in your face 😀
Can you jet wash artificial grass
As I’ve been mentioning all the way through this article a petrol pressure washer and cordless pressure washer are most definitely an advantage but you do need to make sure that whatever the power setting, it is not doing any damage to the lawn. You can test a small patch in the corner of your garden like I suggested with any of the chemicals that you choose to apply as well. This type of testing is good practise for the home and if you carry out work for other customers as well. It’s never certain how heavy pressure will react to a surface. If the grass is old it could pull out strands of artificial grass leaving the area looking patchy. Just go steadily and be diligent as you go cleaning your artificial grass.
Getting rid of unwanted smells and odours in your artificial.
Nine times out of ten the smell will be coming from urine. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pet, a will animal, or you child. The cleanup process is exactly the same. I always go with a watered down vinegar first. This is the most environmentally friendly method to solve the problem. I also get down on my hands and knees with a bar of soap. This doesn’t hurt to try and also, you can test a patch in the corner again before you do so to make sure it isn’t damaging your artificial lawn.
How to deal with leaves on an artificial lawn.
Two ways. The best and easiest is a petrol leaf blower. Blow all those leaves up into a big pile then clear them away with rubble sacks. You could take advantage of a leaf blower mulcher which will suck up the leaves as you go. Quite frankly, I prefer to blow them into a pile. You can always take advantage of the leaves and put them in a compost bin too if you have an area set aside.
The key to clean artificial grass in the UK is catching dirt as well as wee and poo before it really sets in and stains. This is when cleaning can become far more of an issue and you’ll nee to take far more risk in terms of potentially damaging your artificial to get it back into clean condition so stay on top of the maintenance!
