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Replies

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  David Hedges-Gower May 10, 2014 at 6:22pm

  Try lemon juice and a lot of elbow grease. However, it may pay to take a small blower when your near slabs and blow off EVERY time.....
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  James Hall May 10, 2014 at 6:47pm

  Yes will have to blow off every time! Never seen this happen before.

  If brick acid wont shift the stains is it really worth trying lemon juice?
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  Ian Street May 10, 2014 at 7:09pm

  Seen similar before and a season of weather done the trick. If he is happy to wait, my advice would be to leave it and let nature clean it. It looks superficial enough.
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  Lawncare-4u.co.uk May 10, 2014 at 9:03pm

  i did this by mistake once , but only on kerbstones to parking area years ago -thats why i did my pa1/6 course !

  just leave it and it will gradually fade away.
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  Paul McNulty May 10, 2014 at 9:22pm

  Has he gone back to the people who applied the treatment? They should have advised on the risks of using the product up-hill of the slabs, as any rain would obviously send it over them.

  I've looked after a garden for four years now where this happened on cheap, porous slabs. The stains haven't faded at all in that time, and I can't see any way to treat a stain that's probably 3 or 4mm in to the stone. If anyone has a way to clean deep-rooted rust stains from paving, let me know!
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  Simon Smith May 10, 2014 at 10:51pm

  iron/ rust stains are hard to shift and so there are specialist cleaners just for them.

  Try lithofin bero pro or have a look at steintec's site
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  James Hall May 11, 2014 at 11:31am

  Yes it was me that did the application.

  I've used fert for 15 years and never seen this happen before, I wouldn't expect the supplier to advise against this sort of thing when selling a product, why on earth would they???

  Looks like i'll be trying lemon juice and then try and get hold of some Lithofin bero if that doesn't work i'm really stumped.

  I agree that the stains don't appear to be that bad and I would live with them myself, but my customer wont see it that way I can tell you, he seems quite angry at the moment that he has paid £8000 for a patio that is now stained!
• PRO

  Robbie May 11, 2014 at 11:37am

  I think you learned a hard lesson. Always blow after you apply fertiliser, especially after apply a product that has iron in it.

  If I arrive to do a quote and I see those marks I always make a point to inform the client before I apply any products.
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  Colin Hunt May 11, 2014 at 11:55am

  £8K for a precast concrete slab patio!? If it comes to the worst at a fiver each, just take them up and re-lay. Surly no more than a day's work.
  
  James Hall said:

  Yes it was me that did the application.

  I've used fert for 15 years and never seen this happen before, I wouldn't expect the supplier to advise against this sort of thing when selling a product, why on earth would they???

  Looks like i'll be trying lemon juice and then try and get hold of some Lithofin bero if that doesn't work i'm really stumped.

  I agree that the stains don't appear to be that bad and I would live with them myself, but my customer wont see it that way I can tell you, he seems quite angry at the moment that he has paid £8000 for a patio that is now stained!
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  Geoff Norfolk May 11, 2014 at 4:09pm

  I'd just apologize profusely and tell him that given time, it will fade but that you'll try Lithofin to try and speed things up. I'm sure that after a few weeks, he'll have forgotten about it and won't think anything more about it. I certainly wouldn't offer to replace the slabs as the stainig is so minor. I've successfully used lemon juice on a clothing stain which involved the use of an iron as well.......it really wouldn't be practical on patio slabs.
  
  James Hall said:

  Yes it was me that did the application.

  I've used fert for 15 years and never seen this happen before, I wouldn't expect the supplier to advise against this sort of thing when selling a product, why on earth would they???

  Looks like i'll be trying lemon juice and then try and get hold of some Lithofin bero if that doesn't work i'm really stumped.

  I agree that the stains don't appear to be that bad and I would live with them myself, but my customer wont see it that way I can tell you, he seems quite angry at the moment that he has paid £8000 for a patio that is now stained!