My husband and I are cleaning a tennis court in our yard that has SportsCourt tiles (12" x 12") laid over an old asphalt court surface. The integrity of the asphalt surface is good (we will be sealing a few of the old cracks 1/4’ cracks as we go along). We began cleaning by pulling up sections of the tile, dragging them to the middle of the court and removing about an inch of organic debris (like fine compost and dirt, along with moss) by brushing, sweeping and dumping the compost. We have a light-duty pressure washer (Honda Homelite 2700 PSI with 2.3 GPM) which we would like to use with a surface cleaner attachment to clean the asphalt and thereafter the surface of the tiles Any recommendations for a good attachment? Or would we be better off renting a professional surface cleaner? Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions/info.
As nobody else has replied, I’ll just say a couple things.
I recently did a residential tennis court that was really bad. With professional equipment worth thousands of dollars, it still took me several hours to get it useable.
You could rent a commercial machine and surface cleaner, but you’d still have to install proper nozzles to reduce pressure for court surfaces, around 1500psi. I don’t think you have that ability so bottom line, hire someone to do it properly, make sure they’re not some $99 guy.
As rude as it sounds and going off assumptions here, with a tennis court in your yard you probably have the means to get it professionally cleaned. Do yourself and husband a favour and pay a few hundred to get it cleaned properly by an experienced contractor. Someone on this forum could be a stone throw away from you. As @dcbrock said it took him several hours with skill and high end gear.
You can buy like a 12" one from Home Depot for about $60 that just fits on the end of your wand. Have to move kind of slow with it, but does work ok. A lot faster than using a wand, so should be perfect for what you need. Don’t remember the name of the one I have, but it’s red. I use to use for cleaning curb tops and now let my neighbors borrow if they want.
Other only issue is the amount of pressure that would come out of that surface cleaner. Could be too much and damage the surface
We use something similar for brick/concrete retaining walls. Probably too much pressure for a tennis court, and seems like it would take several 10 hour days to clean an entire court that way.
Haahaa, MuscleMyHustle. I appreciate your preamble. We are by no means wealthy and during the pandemic it’s impossible to get anyone here or even to give us an online quote–even from the company that installed the tiles about 20 years ago. We came out of a drought about a year ago, and prior to that had many years of water rationing. This last winter we have experience less snowfall/rain again, so may be entering another period of drought so NOW is the time to get this done before the risk of water rationing returns. My husband and I have been pulling up tile and removing about an inch of compost beneath them. The worst part is the moss that is enmeshed in the poly tiles. We don’t really care what the asphalt looks like underneath (as it won’t show when tiles are put back down), so streaks aren’t a concern. But we were hoping by buying a surface washer attachment it would help speed the task of washing 6000 sq. ft. + of asphalt. BTW: My husband will be 70 next week; I’m pushing 67. So muscle is also our hustle! This has been hard work (we’re almost half-way through since my original post) but since we can’t go to the gym, we consider this our daily workout. Peace out and thanks for your post.
dcbrock, thanks for the answer. See my update.
