Weather can affect your patio furniture, whether it is rain, wind, or sun, not to mention hail or heavy snow. If you live in a place where the weather changes drastically from season to season, you will need a strategy to protect your outdoor furniture and maintain it in good condition. Refurbishing can cost a lot of money, even more than furniture covers or louvered roofs if you calculate it long term so make the necessary investment on time to prevent your furniture from damaging. Let’s check the best and easiest ways of protecting your patio furniture.
Clean the furniture according to its material
Your patio furniture might come in different materials. They cannot all be cleaned in the same way because some materials are more sensitive than others. The most frequent materials for patio furniture are wicker, wood, plastic, wrought iron, and aluminum. It is not complicated to clean and maintain any of these materials as long as you follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Make sure to clean the patio furniture separately from the accessories like cushions or other fabrics. From time to time you can perform some vacuuming or bristle brushing and remove all those dust particles that stick to your furniture.
Getting rid of the mold
Stains caused by mold can really make your furniture look bad. Other than that, mold can be harmful to people who suffer from allergies. Make sure you check your furniture and cushions from time to time because mold can appear on parts that are not that visible or it can disguise the color of the furniture and cushions as black, greenish, brown, or gray. These colors are usually the ones that resemble mold so it is hard to spot them. To prevent mold, keep the furniture completely dry. Protecting your furniture with a louvred roof has been proven to be the most effective way of doing it. You might think it’s a lot of an investment but long-term results are excellent since you will preserve your patio furniture and the maintenance of a louvred roof is not expensive nor complicated. The best thing is they are adjustable so you are both protected from the sun or rain, snow, and any other precipitation.
Adequate storage solution
Depending on the weather conditions in your town, you might not need the patio furniture the entire year. If the winter is harsh, you probably won’t spend a lot of time outdoors. If that is your case, then you should consider storing your patio furniture somewhere safe and dry and save it for sunnier days. If you have room in the attic or basement, there’s a chance to store the furniture and preserve it. Make sure the place has good ventilation and that it’s dry because mold can appear there as well.
Get some furniture covers
Furniture covers are a great solution if you still don’t have a louvered roof. This way you don’t have to bother with taking it indoors and it still gets protected from dust and different weather conditions. The covers can be folded and they don’t occupy too much space, so consider them as a practical option that gives good results in places where weather conditions are too harsh and they don’t demand some more serious protection. However, bear in mind that ventilation is as important as the covering, so make sure you don’t use those covers all the time in order to properly vent your furniture. Keeping it too protected can give you some counter effects like mold.
Make sure the time you spend cleaning, maintaining, and protecting your patio along with its furniture and accessories is really worth it. If you are a person that spends most of their free time outside of the house or indoors, with little time spent on your patio, then all the effort might not pay off. In that case, pick some durable furniture that will not require a lot of maintenance. However, if you really enjoy your time in your patio or backyard, it is recommendable to have a little investment when it comes to its maintenance. It is up to you whether you will use furniture covers, storage options, or by far the best but also a more expensive option, louvered roofs.
