Cleaning and Maintenance Procedures for Aluminum Patio Furniture

Your patio furniture is an important investment in your home or facility. We’ve put together some important maintenance tips to help your patio furniture last longer.

Some Helpful Tips

Here is some free information on the cleaning and maintenance of aluminum outdoor furniture:

Improper care and maintenance will reduce the longevity of your newly refinished outdoor furniture just as it will do with your automobile.

What is improper care and maintenance?

Not cleaning and waxing your newly refinished aluminum furniture frames. The most damaging materials are suntan oils, human perspiration, and environmental pollutants. When these materials are baked by the sun into the finish of outdoor furniture day after day without proper cleaning and waxing, damage to the finish will result.

 

Environmental pollutants:

  • Unfiltered well or ground water.
  • Pods, bark and pollen of many tropical trees and shrubs.
  • Exhaust from planes and cars.
  • Salt spray in the air.

Do not use a pressure washer on aluminum patio furniture unless you are a professional who uses a pressure washer regularly in your work.

What is proper care and maintenance?
Many commercial pool areas have signs that require people to put down towels before sitting or lying on the furniture. If exposure to suntan oil, body oils and acids is limited, then the vinyl won’t stain as badly. This is difficult to enforce and doesn’t prevent all contaminants from reaching the finish. What does work is regular cleaning with a mild detergent and a brush with a long handle on it, such as is used for cleaning cars.
I personally like Dawn dish detergent, because it has emulsifiers that break down oils and is almost scum free. I recommend that you clean your outdoor aluminum furniture this way every three weeks, and ideally try to get the pollutants off immediately. The aluminum frames parts of your patio furniture should be waxed with a light, non-compound car wax, such as “Turtle Wax”. Just wax the arms and legs and exposed metal, don’t get wax on the vinyl straps or slings.

Do not throw your aluminum patio furniture in the pool!

Never throw your furniture in the swimming pool. Prolonged exposure to pool chlorine will severely damage the finish of the frame, slings and vinyl, and will cause corrosion of the aluminum inside the tubing. Most Alumatech furniture stacks and can easily be stored in a covered area to avoid stormy weather.