Are sealed pavers easier to clean?

ICPI's verb for a sealer on concrete pavers is reduce: sealers “reduce the intrusion of water, stains, oils and dirt” into the paver surface. The Natural Stone Institute, writing about stone, chooses a comparative instead. Sealing makes stone “more stain resistant,” it says, and in the same sentence it rules out stain proof.

What each verb leaves out is the part an owner hopes for. Reduce is not prevent, so a sealed paver can still take in some of a spill. Resistant is not proof, so a stain can still form on sealed stone. Neither body puts a number on how much less gets in, and neither describes a sealed surface that cleans itself.

ICPI's figure caption comes closest to a promise: “Sealers resist stains which makes them ideal for high use areas where they might occur.” Resist is still the verb, and the caption names where a sealer earns its place, not a stain it keeps out entirely. What still lands on top of a sealed surface is a separate question, answered at do sealed pavers still get dirty.

Tech Spec 5 does print the phrase easier to clean, but about liquid joint sand stabilizers: “When applied to the paver surface and joints, stabilizers can make the surface easier to clean and prevent staining in a manner similar to sealers.” The comparison runs from the stabilizer to the sealer, and it is ICPI's own.

A second passage repeats the idea for cured stabilizers left on the surface: “Like sealers, cured liquid stabilizers that remain on the surface of the pavers enhance their color, inhibit fading, and protect against staining.” ICPI follows it with “It also makes the paver surface easier to clean and maintain.” A page that says a sealer makes pavers easier to clean is leaning on that comparison.

The lean is fair, since ICPI draws the parallel itself, but it is a parallel and not a sentence ICPI wrote about sealers in general. What a joint stabilization product is for at the joint, holding the sand in place, is a separate subject.

ICPI's acrylic entry speaks to cleaning a sealed surface directly. “Acrylic sealers provide good stain resistance,” it says, and pavers with acrylics that become soiled or worn “can be easily cleaned and resealed without the use of extremely hazardous materials.” The sentence describes an acrylic surface that is already dirty or worn, cleaned and then given a fresh coat.

ICPI prints no matching easily cleaned line for urethanes. Of urethane sealers it says “Urethanes themselves are more resistant to chemicals than acrylics,” which describes the sealer's own resistance and is not a cleaning instruction.

Most sealers, ICPI adds, change the look of the paver by darkening it and enhancing the surface color, so a sealed surface looks different before any stain arrives. The two sealer families and their finishes are compared on the paver cleaning page.

A sealer's reduction starts from whatever surface it went onto. In ICPI's order, stains come off specific areas first, the whole pavement is cleaned after, and the sealer follows both. What that cleaning has to include is set out at sealing a driveway without cleaning it first.

The gain also thins. ICPI says a sealer normally needs reapplying after a period of wear and weather, and as it wears, less of its reduction is left to make the next spill easier to lift.

ICPI names one gap in the reduction itself. Silanes and siloxanes, it says, “do not resist penetration of petroleum stains unless they have additives specifically for that purpose.” On those sealers without the additives, the reduction does not reach a petroleum stain such as a motor oil drip, and removing an oil stain from pavers is its own job.

No document cited here measures what pool water does to a sealer, and that question is taken up at pool chemicals and paver sealer.

Keeping a sealed surface clean by hand, with a cleaner that suits the sealer on it, is set out at cleaning sealed pavers between professional cleanings. The word itself is defined under sealer.