This is a guide for how to clean and maintain your wooden or metal gazebo shelters.
Although Gazebos shouldn’t require much cleaning or maintenance, please be aware that regular checks of the drainage and guttering is highly recommended!
Full guttering and downpipe cleaning should be done twice a year.
For wooden framed gazebos, you should treat these with wood preserve to ensure their longevity.
Read more below about cleaning and maintenance tips, plus how to look after your shelter in specific weather conditions.
Cleaning your Gazebo
Drainage, Guttering & Downpipes
Check your drainage regularly and aim to clean guttering and downpipes at least twice a year. Remove any build up of moss or debris and flush through with water to ensure there are no remaining blockages. The bottom of the downpipe is normally the main area that needs checking and clearing of debris to get the drainage flowing again.
Cleaning the Gazebo Frame
Do you have any plants growing up the gazebo frame?
For wooden framed gazebos, plants will undermine the integrity of the wood overtime and plants make it more difficult to clean and treat the frame with preserve. If your frame is without plants then you can clean down with a scrubbing brush and a mild detergent. Allow to fully dry before treating with wood preserve.
For metal framed gazebos without plants growing up the frame, a simple clean down the frame with a wet cloth will get rid of any debris and dust to make the gazebo look smart again.
Cleaning the Gazebo Roof
Do not put any body weight on the gazebo roof! We recommend a professional comes to clean your gazebo roof if it needs cleaning. A jet wash should be sufficient to clear off any debris including moss, leaves or bird deposits.
For louvered roofs, clean with the slats fully closed but ensure you open these to remove any water and debris before you open to the public. You don’t want to open them with customers sitting underneath to have debris fall on them.
Maintenance advice
Woodberry offers structural guarantees on our gazebos but only if they are regularly maintained to ensure longevity.
Wooden Gazebos
We recommend that you treat the wooden gazebos with wood preserve twice a year.
The treatment should be with a spirit based wood preserve such as the Woodberry brown retreatment fluid.
If you have any plants remove them from the frame in order to treat the wood.
Lightly sand the wood and wipe off the residue with a clean cloth. Wait for the wood to dry before treating with wood preserve.
Check the guttering pipes are all intact and not leaking.
Metal Gazebos
The aluminium framed gazebos will not require much maintenance as they will not rust. The main element to check with these is the drainage as it is integrated into the frame, so more difficult to see blockages. Run a hose down the leg of the frame from top to bottom to check the water is flowing through the drainage channel.
Adverse weather conditions
Snow
The gazebos can take a small weight of snow load but please ensure that snow is cleared off the roof before it gets to approx. 5cm thick.
Windy conditions
The frames of the metal gazebos are built to withstand a windforce of 120km/h. The side panels and blinds are not however, so we strongly advise removing or rolling up the sides when strong winds are forecast.
For louvered roof shelters, ensure the slats are in the ‘closed’ position in strong winds.
Download Gazebo Maintenance Checklists
To help further, we have Maintenance checklists available to download with quick tick lists for Metal and Wooden Gazebo Maintenance
Metal Gazebo – Download PDF
metal gazebo maintenance checklist
Wooden Gazebo – Download PDF
