How to Maintain a Deck or Patio Year-Round

To maintain a deck or patio, sweep it every week or two, wash it properly in spring and again in fall, and check once a year for loose boards, wobbly railings and sunken pavers. A wood deck also needs a fresh coat of finish every 1 to 6 years, depending on the product.

A year-round deck and patio routine

When	Wood deck	Composite deck	Stone or concrete patio
Every 1 to 2 weeks while leaves fall	Sweep, and clear the gaps between boards	Sweep	Sweep with a stiff broom
Spring	Inspect, wash, check whether it needs refinishing	Inspect, wash with soap and water	Wash, pull weeds, refill sand in the joints
Summer	Wipe up grill grease and spills the same day	Same	Clean spills before they soak in
Fall	Clear leaves before they mat down, treat mildew	Wash again	Clear leaves and moss
Winter	Use a plastic shovel	Plastic shovel only	Clear snow from steps and paths

Wet leaves cause more trouble than anything else on this list. A drift of them left against a deck for a few weeks keeps the boards damp and leaves dark stains, and on a patio the same debris is what weeds and moss root into. Pots that never move do the same thing on a smaller scale, so shift them now and then.

How to clean a wood deck

Clear everything off the deck, including planters and the grill.
Sweep, then run a putty knife or a thin scraper down the gaps between boards. Packed debris in the gaps holds water and stops the deck from drying out after rain.
Wet the boards and scrub with a deck cleaner, or warm water and dish soap, using a stiff-bristle brush. Work along the grain, a few boards at a time.
For black or green mildew, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Wood Handbook recommends a commercial mildew cleaner or diluted household bleach mixed with detergent. Soak nearby plants with plain water before you start and rinse them again afterward.
Rinse thoroughly and let the boards dry completely before you stain or seal. Check the drying time on the can. It's usually longer than people want to wait.

A pressure washer is fine on wood if you keep it on a low setting with a wide fan tip and keep the wand moving along the grain. A narrow tip held close to the surface raises fuzzy fibers and cuts grooves into softer woods like cedar and pine, and those marks show through every coat of stain you put on afterward.

How often should you seal or stain a deck?

Go by the finish. The Wood Handbook's chapter on finishing gives these expected service lives for deck boards in an average US climate:

Finish	New, smooth boards	Weathered or rough-sawn boards
Clear water repellent or lightly tinted deck finish	1 to 2 years	2 to 3 years
Semitransparent stain	2 to 3 years	3 to 6 years
Paint or solid-color stain	Rated low for decks	Rated low for decks

The handbook adds that climate and exposure (desert, seashore, deep woods) move those numbers a lot. To check your own deck, sprinkle some water on a sunny stretch of boards. If it beads up, the finish is still working. If it soaks in and darkens the wood, recoat this season.

Clear and lightly pigmented finishes don't peel. According to the handbook, they fade, lose their water repellency and turn gray, so as long as there's no mildew, you can usually scrub off the dirt and put a new coat straight on. Paint and solid stains are the ones that crack and peel and need scraping before you can recoat.

Can you pressure wash composite decking?

Some boards, yes. Others, no. Trex's care and cleaning page splits its decking into two groups:

Current high-performance lines (Transcend, Enhance, Select) can be pressure washed at up to 3,100 PSI, using a fan tip held at least 8 inches from the surface.
Early-generation boards (Accents, Origins, Contours and others) shouldn't be pressure washed at all. Trex says it can damage the surface and void the warranty, and recommends cleaning with soap and water, plus a composite deck cleaner in spring and fall.

For both, use a soft-bristle brush and rinse off all the soap so it doesn't dry into a film. Products containing bleach or acid will lighten the boards, so test them somewhere hidden. In winter, Trex allows calcium chloride or rock salt on ice but says never to use a metal shovel, which scratches the surface. Other brands have their own rules, so look up the care page for your exact board before you rent a pressure washer.

How to clean a stone or concrete patio

Marshalls' paving cleaning guide is a good model even if your pavers came from somewhere else:

Sweep with a stiff-bristle brush to get the loose grit off.
Scrub with warm water and washing-up liquid or an acid-free floor cleaner, then rinse until no soap is left. Steer the dirty water toward a drain, away from flower beds.
If you use a pressure washer, start on a low setting and hold the lance at a shallow angle, no steeper than 30 degrees, moving diagonally across the joints. Pointing it straight down blasts out the jointing sand or mortar and can mark the surface.
Once it's dry, check the joints and brush in fresh jointing sand wherever it has washed out.

Regular sweeping does most of the weed control, because it knocks out seedlings before they root into the joints. When you pull a bigger weed and the sand comes with it, refill the gap.

Be careful with acid-based patio cleaners. Marshalls says limestone and marble should never be cleaned with them because the acid dissolves the stone, and some sandstones turn orange where they contain iron. Granite and slate usually tolerate acid, but test a hidden corner first anyway.

Problems to fix before summer

Cleaning won't fix any of these, and some are safety issues:

A railing or post that moves when you lean on it. Keep people off that section until it's repaired.
Soft spots in boards or joists. If a screwdriver sinks into the wood with little effort, it's rotting.
Nails or screws that have worked up above the surface.
Rust streaks or soft wood where the deck attaches to the house.
Pavers that rock or have sunk, which are a trip hazard, and puddles that sit against the house wall after rain.

Standing water next to the house often traces back to a downspout emptying onto the patio. The gutter cleaning guide covers where that water should go. A loose railing or anything structural is a job for a deck builder.

Once the surface is clean and dry, the outdoor furniture guide covers the cushions and frames, and the deck checks fit into the wider spring maintenance checklist. Spring and fall cleans are easy to let slide, so they're worth setting up as two recurring reminders in ChoreLists.com.