Is it possible to clean my pea gravel already laid down

Dee
by Dee

I had a 15x35 pea gravel patio installed with the weed barrier underneath, unbeknownst to me the gravel was filthy. Because of the barrier the dirt is forever trapped. No where in any of the pea gravy patios is that ever mentioned. I'm crazed over this....

  7 answers
  • Laura Cooper Laura Cooper on Jul 08, 2018

    Dee, just water it as if it was grass. The dirt will run through the weed barrier with the water. A few good rainstorms will help, too.

  • Any landscape gravel or rock will be filthy. Nothing to lose you mind over. Just hose it off until it is clean. Easy! I have tumbled gravel in several areas on my property too. Once you go out there and hose things off a bit, it will be fine. Just breathe . . . 🌞

  • Mogie Mogie on Jul 08, 2018

    Just hose it down like you are hosing a dirty sidewalk off.

  • Brenda Brandt Deason Brenda Brandt Deason on Jul 08, 2018

    You could cover the end of a shop vac hose with a mesh that is large enough for dirt to get through and too small for rocks. It would probably be easier to use water, as others have suggested.

  • Dee Dee on Jul 15, 2018

    I appreciate all your responses.. but it's not about water going through or cleaning off the top layer of dirt.( It's been down for a whole year through numerous rainstorms and tons of snow. ) All the dirt is still trapped just below the surface...It's the dirt that cannot pass through the weed barrier not the water, so as soon as the stones are even slightly disturbed the dirt resurfaces as either mud or dust. That dirt is forever trapped...This is our Patio not a path or bedding fill, so it's very inconvenient. We will probably have to lay patio blocks in the dining area.

    • Ned Ned on Nov 10, 2020

      @Dee I'm about to put. a bunch of pea gravel in over landscape fabric for a dog run . Mine is going to be about 5 inches deep and I really don't want to have to wash off 3 tons of gravel. Can you tell me how deep your gravel was where you had this problem? I'm hoping mine is deep enough that the soot will just rinse down far enough that it won't be dirty on top. Another idea I had was to just put a couple drain in the landscape fabric with screen on them but not sure if that then would let dirt come up through it and maybe make matters worse. I am very curious how deep your pea gravel patio was though (how many inches of pea gravel deep).

  • Tracy Tracy on Dec 11, 2020

    I know this is four years later ... but I have the exact problem; we had our whole yard around a new patio filled with pea gravel — and after it was put down I discovered how filthy it truly was and it doesn’t matter how much I spray it, the weed barrier cloth traps in the clay dust and silt. It’s horrific because my kids play on it and are coated in clay ans worse their lungs are exposed to silica! After thousands of dollars on this landscape project — I’m having to figure out how to remove the barrier so the dangerous dust can get into t he earth and out of my backyard. How did you ever solve your problem??

    • Shawna Shawna on Apr 02, 2021

      How did you do it, Tracy? I just got some filthy pebbles delivered and I'm planning to drill holes in the bottom of my plastic wheel barrel to wash it shovelful by shovelful before I put it on top of the weed barrier. This isn't a step I had anticipated as gravel I've ordered before came clean.

  • Carlotta Slusher Carlotta Slusher on Jul 18, 2022

    We have been useing gravel for our patio area an a place for our puppy to go out on, an we made the mistake of buying "P" gravel, instead of lime stone, lime stone seems to be cleaner,