Tried pouring boiling water on my patio pavers to kill weeds, worked way better than vinegar

I was sick of pulling weeds between the cracks every two weeks, so I boiled a big pot of water and dumped it on a patch last Saturday. The weeds were brown and shriveled by the next morning, and they haven't come back in that spot yet. Anybody else use heat instead of chemicals for this?

3 comments

3 Comments

riley_schmidt9d ago

Poured boiling water on a whole 4x6 section of my own patio last spring. Killed the weeds dead in like two days, but I also managed to warp a paver so bad it looks like a tiny cracked pie crust now. Guess that's the price of being too cheap to buy a ten dollar spray bottle.

jana1198d ago

Oh man, I gotta say I see it a little different than you, Paige... boiling water is cheap and it works if you're patient. I mean yeah, it'll warp cheap pavers if you pour a ton at once, but I just do smaller amounts and let it cool a bit. The roots thing though, that's why you gotta hit them a few times over a couple weeks, not just once and expect magic. I've been doing it on my walkway for years and the weeds stay gone as long as I'm consistent about it... chemicals just feel like overkill for a few dandelions.

paige869d ago

Oh come on, really? You think that's a fix? I went through this whole ordeal last summer. Boiling water is a temporary band-aid at best. Killed the surface weeds but the roots just laughed and grew back stronger in like a week. Plus it warped two of my pavers, now they're all cracked and uneven. Ended up having to rip them out and replace them. Chemical spray for me, at least it actually penetrates deep enough to kill the root system for good.