Pool surrounds and patios
Travertine, pavers and tiled alfresco — the black line at the coping and the sunscreen film, gone.
Phones on Mon–Sat. After that, send a text and we call back before 9am.
- How long
- Most pool surrounds take 1–2 hours.
- Where
- Broadbeach based, Gold Coast wide
- Also
- Patios and alfresco, Travertine and pavers, Pool coping.
- Price
- Free, no-obligation on-site quote. We do not publish figures.
- Fibro
- We do not pressure-clean asbestos cement. If we find it, we stop and tell you in writing.
- Arrival
- Arrival window confirmed the evening before.
How it gets done
The same order, every job. If we depart from it, you hear on the day.
- Walk the area with you — surface, sealer, the slippery spots, the stains, where the run-off goes.
- Test patch on soft stone out of the way before we commit to the main area.
- Move furniture and pots, cover the water where it makes sense, soak the gardens on the run-off line.
- Degrease the sunscreen and body-oil zone around the coping and entry steps, and let it dwell.
- Apply the solution to the whole area and give it time to kill the biofilm.
- Clean at the lowest pressure it takes, detailing coping, steps, grout and the shell edge by hand.
- Spot-treat tannin, rust and salt bloom with the products that work on them.
- Rinse it all down — paving, glass, stainless, furniture, plants, paths — and put the area back.
What comes with every job
Not a premium package. It is what a job is, at no extra charge.
- A walk around first
- We go over the property with you before a hose comes off the ute. You hear the bad news at the start.
- Before photos, every job
- Shot before we touch anything, including whatever was already cracked, lifting or perished. That record is as much for you as for us.
- Plants, drains, furniture
- Garden beds wet down and rinsed. Drains and pits covered. Furniture, mats and the barbecue moved out of the way and put back.
- Biodegradable products
- Diluted, left to work, then rinsed. Drains and pits in the wash zone stay covered, and run-off keeps off the inlet where the fall allows.
- The full photo set
- Before, after, and a separate set of anything already damaged. Out with the invoice, sooner if you ask.
- A person you can text
- The number reaches the person who will be standing on your driveway. No call centre, no subcontractor.
None of it is an add-on. No tier unlocks it. Hold any exterior cleaning quote against the list, ours included.
The pool surround is the one surface people walk on barefoot, and it gets dirty in ways nothing else does: splash-out keeps the coping permanently damp, sunscreen and body oil go grey in the first metre of paving, salt crystallises in the pores of the stone, and a frangipani drops something on it most weeks of the year.
It is also delicate work — half the surfaces around Gold Coast pools are soft enough to be ruined permanently in about four seconds by the wrong nozzle.
Why pool surrounds differ
Four things work on that paving at once, and each needs a different answer. Biofilm — the black and green growth — thrives because splash-out and shade keep the coping damp all year, and that is what the cleaning solution deals with. Sunscreen and body oil are not organic growth and pressure barely touches them; they need a degreaser and dwell time. Salt from a saltwater pool wicks into porous stone and re-blooms as white crystal after every dry spell, which is why a pool surround can look hazy a fortnight after a clean. Tannin from frangipani, poinciana and palm litter stains brown deep into the stone and needs a specific treatment, not more pressure. Anyone quoting to blast the lot is solving one of your four problems.
Travertine, sandstone and honed tile
Travertine is the default around Gold Coast pools: a soft, porous limestone full of natural voids filled at the factory. Pressure washing it like a driveway blows that fill straight out, etches the surface and leaves a pitted patch you can feel under your feet forever — no repair, only replacement. Acid-based cleaners are worse again: hydrochloric or brick acid burns and dulls any limestone, travertine or marble, and it is a common way a well-meaning owner destroys their own coping in an afternoon. Sandstone flakes, slate delaminates into sheets, and honed or polished porcelain shows every mark from a jet held too close. So the approach is the opposite of a driveway: low pressure, the right solution, dwell time, and a test patch somewhere that does not matter before we commit to the area. Pavers and stencilled concrete follow the same rules as on a driveway — mind the joint sand, mind the failing sealer — and we clean only, so no sealing, coating or anti-slip treatments after.
Slippery is a safety problem
Most people finally book a pool surround clean because someone nearly went over. That slipperiness is biofilm — a thin, slick layer of algae and bacteria filling the surface texture and taking away the grip the paving was made with. It is worst exactly where it matters most: the shaded side, the step out of the pool, the ramp, under a shade sail that never lets the surface dry. Removing the growth restores the surface's own slip resistance, which is also why we will not use a nozzle that polishes the texture flatter than it already is. If a surface is slippery because it was the wrong tile for a wet area in the first place, we say so — cleaning helps, but it will not turn a polished tile into a safe one.
Overspray and your pool
Our wash solution is sodium hypochlorite based — the same active already in your pool — so a little overspray is not the disaster people fear. What we do not want in there is the surfactant, which foams, or the debris we have just lifted off the paving. So we work away from the water, keep the run-off heading to the garden side, cover the water where the layout makes it sensible, and catch the solids rather than sweep them into the skimmer. Afterwards, test your chlorine and pH before anyone swims and run the filter for a cycle — rarely more than a small adjustment, but worth checking rather than assuming. If the pool has a cover, leaving it on for the day makes the whole thing simpler.
Plants, pets and pots
Pool areas usually have the best plants on the property, planted right where the run-off wants to go. So every bed, the lawn edge and anything on the run-off line gets soaked with clean water before we start and rinsed again after — dilution is what protects a hedge from a solution that would otherwise concentrate at the low point of a bed. Pots get moved rather than watered around, cushions and furniture come off the area, and anything precious gets covered. Dogs and cats stay inside until everything is rinsed and dry, and their water bowls come in with them: a dog drinking out of a puddle on the day is the one avoidable problem in all of this. If the pool gate is the only access, we treat it as a pool gate — it self-closes behind us every time, and we do not prop it open for a hose.
Patios, alfresco and the shed
Most pool surround jobs take in the alfresco area next door, which has its own list: mould on the patio ceiling lining and the fan blades, cobwebs and mud wasp nests in the corners, insect wash down the posts, and a grease shadow on the tiles around the barbecue that wants a degreaser rather than a jet. Glass pool fencing, spigots and stainless handrails come up well, though heavy mineral etching from years of sprinkler overspray may not fully clear, and coastal stainless needs a proper freshwater rinse or it tea-stains. All of it is reached from the ground — we do no work at heights. One caution: pool pump sheds and older patio linings on pre-1990 properties are often asbestos cement, including corrugated Super Six. High-pressure water on asbestos cement is prohibited under Queensland's asbestos code of practice, so we identify it, keep pressure off it entirely and tell you what we left alone.
Questions we get asked
Will you damage my travertine?
Not the way we work it. Travertine is soft, porous limestone, and the two things that ruin it are high pressure and acid-based cleaners — both of which we keep away from it. It gets low pressure, the right solution and dwell time, with a test patch somewhere inconspicuous first. If your coping has already been etched or pitted by a previous clean, we show you where before we start.
Do I need to do anything to the pool afterwards?
Test your chlorine and pH before anyone swims, and run the filter for a cycle. We work away from the water and catch what we lift, so there is normally very little to correct — but a pool is chemistry, and it is worth ten seconds with a test kit rather than a guess.
Can you get the sunscreen and suntan oil marks out?
Usually, yes — but it is a degreaser and dwell-time fix, not a pressure fix. Where oil has been soaking into unsealed porous stone for years, expect a big improvement rather than a perfect one. We tell you which of those you are looking at while we are standing on it with you.
The paving is slippery. Will cleaning fix it?
In most cases yes: the slipperiness is biofilm sitting in the surface texture, and removing it gives back the grip the surface was made with. What cleaning cannot do is change the tile — a polished or glazed surface that was wrong for a wet area will still be slick when wet. We do not apply anti-slip coatings, so if that is the answer we point you to someone who does.
Can you do the glass pool fence and the stainless at the same time?
Yes, and it is worth doing together. Glass panels, spigots and handrails get washed and rinsed with fresh water as part of the job. Long-term mineral etching from sprinkler overspray may not come out completely, and stainless that has already started tea-staining needs polishing rather than washing — we show you the difference rather than promise it away.
Why do you not publish a price for this?
Because the surface decides the job. Fifty square metres of hard-wearing pavers and fifty of soft travertine with a sunscreen film and tannin staining take very different time and product, and a number on a page would mislead one of them. We come and look, then give you a fixed price on the spot. The visit is free and there is no obligation to go ahead.
Not sure it needs doing?
Ring and describe it. We will tell you straight.
Ask for a quote
We look at the job and price it on the spot. It costs nothing.
After hours the form still reaches us. We call back before 9am.
Suburbs we cover
Pool surrounds and patios across the Gold Coast. These are the ones written up so far.
Related services
Two or three surfaces on one visit costs less than separate trips.
Driveway cleaning
Concrete, exposed aggregate and pavers back to an even colour, without the stripes.
Fences and retaining walls
Colorbond, palings, render and block — cleaned at a pressure that does not leave timber furry.
House washing
Soft washing for render, Colorbond, weatherboard and brick — mould off, paint on.