To think that there is no need to pressure wash the great outdoors to within an inch of its life?

[bigbluebus]

The house behind us owns a pressure washer. They wash the cars with it and last year cleaned the patio and path with it. Today they seem to have hired a man with an industrial strength pressure washer who has been cleaning the drive/path/patio for at least 5 hours now with the resultant noise. It's 30° here and people have their windows open - some are still WFH. Their neighbour opposite them also owns a noisy pressure washer and uses it frequently. They are 2 rows of houses away with a street in between and the noise can be heard inside my house when they use it.
I usually wash my car with a bucket and sponge and an ordinary hose pipe or drive it up the road where a team of chaps will clean it for a fiver. My patio has not been pressure washed in the 29 years I've lived here and it is absolutely fine - it looks like an outdoor surface!
So AIBU to think that this obsession with pressure washing the outdoors is totally unnecessary and unacceptable from a) a noise perspective and b) it is environmentally bad due to chemicals, electricity usage and a waste of water? (All these houses are on water meters)

Oh I hate those noisy buckets and sponges. All that sloshing around and then the sound of the sponge being squeezed out. Don't get me started on chamois leathers - they set my teeth on edge.

@Terhou

We sit out there a lot and don’t like sitting looking at a minging patio

What makes a patio minging? It's not as if people eat off them or walk on them in bare feet., and life is really too short to start worrying about the cleanliness of something that is outdoors and open to the elements. I hate them when they look brand new, they need to be properly weathered. If the garden isn't minging, I can't see that it does the patio any harm to have a bit of dirt from the garden trodden in.

In terms of patios I’ve had it is dirt and grime build up. It comes off the roof, from the trees, from the chimney, from the plant pots and build sup over th year, I’ve no desire to sit in the flower beds and eat my lunch and have a drink and I am the same with the patio. If the grass was covered in dirt I’d not sit in that either, I’d sit in a bit that was just grass.

I think we just have different tastes, if you like your patio dirty looking that’s just as fine as me liking mine clean looking, I won’t invite you round snd you don’t invite me round.😃

My NDNs do this. 7 hours jet washing a bloody patio - in fecking Cumbria so it is absolutely guaranteed to rain on it ASAP!
The noise is soul destroying for that amount of time and it's a despicable waste of water.
I have got a little jet washer, which I will run to blast over the car with. I've never run it for longer than 10 minutes at a time and I still feel bad!

Sorry I should add I do walk on my patio bare foot.

I'm with @Bluntness100 for all the reasons listed. Plus I have a dog and no lawn, it's probably best it gets a proper clean tbh...

I do my patio and driveway twice a year. Takes about 2 hours to do the patio and 4 to do the driveway. I don’t use chemicals, just blast out the weeds, bird poo, fox poo, moss and lichen.
I don’t have plastic grass and I am on a water meter so I am paying for every bit of water I use and I am happy to pay as I don’t want a dirty shitty drive or patio.

Not a waste of water - a pressure washer uses very little, and to wash a car, it's certainly less than the bucket full you're using with your sponge.

I agree. Also, there's no need to,pour bleach down your outside drain every night!

I see your neighbours’ pressure washers and raise you my neighbouring square’s leaf blowers.

At least the leaf blowers are fairly seasonal. And not yet !

@HeronLanyon

At least the leaf blowers are fairly seasonal. And not yet !

I live surrounded by holm oaks so yes I do use a leaf blower all year round or I would be knee in leaves.

I live surrounded by holm oaks so yes I do use a leaf blower all year round or I would be knee in leaves.

I don't think this would be the case. In natural woodland areas and forests you rarely have to walk around in knee deep leaves. Granted there might be a short period of time in autumn when it gets a bit leafy but the rest of the year, they're doing their leafy thing - you know...decompose.

Like they did well before leaf blowers were invented.

Or maybe we've just buggered everything up so much they aren't able to decompose.

Our neighbour does his in the spring where he jet washes all the crud off his patio under his gate then just leaves it on the pavement!
He then does it monthly to keep it nice and noisy until the autumn.

It is just more noise all the sodding time! I hope they wreck the cars paintwork

I don't know where you are but my area is currently being pressure washed naturally! Thunder and lightening as an accompaniment.

Pressure washers are pretty good though.

Holm oaks are evergreen so drop leaves all year round. My house is literally surrounded by them with the trees overhanging one whole side of my garden and driveway. I leaf blow the leaves monthly. Some I just blow onto the flower beds but not too many as it takes around two years for the leaves to break down. The majority I collect into old bins to make leaf mould but even using the right conditions to break down the leaves you are still looking at 2 years before it is useable.
Different trees have different leaves and an every green holm oak is not an English oak with big leafy leaves that break down quickly and just drop once a year.

@TheOrigRights

I live surrounded by holm oaks so yes I do use a leaf blower all year round or I would be knee in leaves.

I don't think this would be the case. In natural woodland areas and forests you rarely have to walk around in knee deep leaves. Granted there might be a short period of time in autumn when it gets a bit leafy but the rest of the year, they're doing their leafy thing - you know...decompose.

Like they did well before leaf blowers were invented.

Or maybe we've just buggered everything up so much they aren't able to decompose.

Or use a rake ;)

It is just more noise all the sodding time! I hope they wreck the cars paintwork

They don’t. You’d have to do something really stupid like use one on already damaged paint.

I do my patio now and then - a bucket and brush wouldn’t do it! But it doesn’t take 5 hours it takes about 20 mins??!

Eek. We’ve 2 patios and Astro turf. It all get jet washed. ‘Our’ patio is once a year as it gets all sappy from the surrounding trees.

The other patio every week or so as we’ve got dogs and it needs cleaning or it’s gipping. Same for the Astro turf.

And yes Astro turf is evil, but it’s so much easier with dogs, but it’s only about 25% of total garden area, the non patio bits are wild flower beds, pond, veg beds so in my mind we’ve off set the evil plastic grass.

My patio gets gross? Birds and moss etc. Pressure washing is so much better than chemicals

YANBU. Not sure what you can do about it though. I don't know any seeds you could plant in the cracks of said patio!

what happened to just using a bit of elbow grease

Do you take your clothes down to the river and wash them with rocks?

DH bought one a few years ago as he had run out of power tools and other toys to buy but I think hes only used it once!

All of our paving around the house and the drive is stone and it gets very slippery. It's a big job to clean and a pressure washer is the only way. I agree though that the noise is deafening. I would never dream of using it on anything else as it is so harsh!