How to pressure wash a patio without blowing out the joints.

This is the same kit as the driveway & concrete kit, on a smaller pad with more edges. It assumes a 3.0-orifice homeowner gas washer. If your stamped numbers sit outside that band, size the hole on the orifice chart, check flow on the GPM chart, and pick the fan on the tip size chart before you borrow the steps. A broom-finished driveway is the driveway how-to. Wood next to the pad is not this job — that is the wood deck how-to.

Orifice still comes from the pump

The fan does not get narrower because the patio is smaller. The hole still has to match stamped PSI and GPM, or the unloader chatters and the wash goes mushy. These are the same bands as the orifice chart and the tip size chart.

• Compact electric. About 1.2–1.8 GPM at 1,600–2,000 PSI. Orifice 2.0. A 3.0 “gas” tip on this machine loses pressure. Wash with the wand. Most 15″ decks will not spin.
• Homeowner gas. About 2.3–2.8 GPM at 2,600–3,200 PSI. Orifice 3.0 — 25030 green, 40030 white. This is the band the driveway kit is built for. A 15″ deck fits when the cleaner’s max GPM does too. The one in the kit is rated at most 2.7 GPM.
• Prosumer gas. About 3.5–4.0 GPM at 3,500–4,000 PSI. Orifice 4.0. Same fans, more standoff. A 3.0 tip chatters the unloader. Read the deck’s PSI plate before you hang a spinning cleaner rated for the homeowner band.

25° on the field, 40° to rinse

Green 25° is the workhorse on poured concrete and on pavers, with a little standoff and the wand moving. White 40° lays soap and rinses. Yellow 15° is only for gum stuck to solid concrete — keep it moving, and keep it out of joints. The 0° red tip in a 5-pack stays in the drawer.

• Aim across the pavers, not down the joint. A fan pointed into the crack is how sand leaves.
• Sand-set pavers hold ordinary joint sand. It washes out if you stall. A flat surface cleaner you keep walking is often kinder than a wand parked in one spot — when the pump can spin the bar. If the joints are already low, use 25° with standoff so you can see you are not trenching them.
• Polymeric sand is a different joint. Read the bag for cure time before any wash. Fresh sand is still a film. After it has cured, it still does not want a 0° tip, a turbo nozzle, or a wand stalled in the joint.
• Sealer on a slab or on pavers still takes 25° and 40°. A pinpoint tip, or a 15° you park, dulls the film in a stripe you will see when it dries. Dwell does more for a haze than a closer tip.

When a surface cleaner helps

A wand on 25° leaves tiger stripes on an open slab. A surface cleaner is two spinning nozzles under a skirt — if the bar has enough flow to stay alive. On 2.3–2.7 GPM that is a 15–16″ deck, not a 20″ plate that crawls. Diameter is coverage. GPM is physics. Detail: surface cleaner matrix.

• Use the deck when the pad is open enough to keep the skirt flat — a slab you would otherwise stripe with a 25°. Overlap about half a deck. Do not tilt it.
• Skip it when the patio is about the size of a dining set, or walls, steps, and furniture legs keep the skirt from sitting flat. The wand is the honest tool. An electric in the 1.2–1.8 GPM band is the same answer: most 15″ decks will not spin.
• Do not drop a 0° red tip inside the housing.
• The wand still does the edges, the steps, and the strip against the house.

Soap stays after the pump

Grill grease and tire haze are chemistry, not more PSI. A peroxide concrete cleaner with dwell does the lift — foam cannon or pump sprayer, then the fan. The cannon wants roughly 2+ GPM. Under that, use a pump sprayer. Solvent and bleach never go through the inlet. The foam and soap guide is the chemistry path. Flush the cannon with clean water when you are done. Fresh oil and old shadows, if the patio has them, follow how to remove oil stains from a driveway: absorb, dwell, agitate, then rinse.

Edges, furniture, plants, and runoff

• Edges. The deck misses the last few inches against walls, posts, and steps. Those get 25° green, fan moving, with standoff, angled so you are washing the patio and not the siding.
• Furniture. Move it. Washing around a chair leg leaves a shadow. If a grill has to stay, come back to the feet after — do not orbit them with a 15°.
• Plants. Wet leaves and mulch before soap. Rinse them with plain water when the pad is done. A fan into a bed is a second wash you did not plan.
• Runoff. Push dirty water away from the house, off door tracks, and out of the joint against the foundation. A fan into the threshold drives water under the door. Stay off garage-door seals and the bottom of painted siding.

Picks that match this job

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Full short list, machine band, and danger notes live on the driveway & concrete kit. Washing a broom-finished driveway? How to pressure wash a driveway. Which fan at your PSI? Tip size chart. Wrong thread on the gun? See quick-connect wands.