stuart noble wrote:

On 18/01/2014 07:04, Larry Stoter wrote:
Roger Tonkin wrote:

Our house faces north, and as such the tarmac drive
gets no sun at all and is quite damp.

I've tried over the years removing the moss that grows
by scraping it off with a spade and blasting it off
with a power hose. Neither of which work really
successfully and are starting to damage the tarmac.

So it looks as if it must be a chemical attack, but
what with? I,m hoping to get to a garden centre next
week, so I'd like some idea of what has worked and
what to avoid if possible.

Many thanks

Have a go with coca-cola - seriously.

Full strength coke is a good, cheap and easily obtainable cleaning
agent. Personally, I've used it for removing oil stains from concrete
which it does very effectively.


You mean motor oil? That would be amazing given all the expensive
products which don't work very well IME

Yes, motor oil, where a car has been standing and leaking oil.

Large bottle of coke, stiff brush and some newspaper. Poor some coke on
to the concrete and work the stiff brush in circles. Doesn't need to be
particularly hard or vigorous. The idea is to get the coke into all the
cracks. Keep the surface wet with fresh coke as necessary. After 5 mins
or so, soak all the liquid up with the newspaper.

Depending on how old the stains are, you'll need to reapeat several
times. When I've tried it, the oil stains where about 2 years old and 3
applications got rid of most of the stain.

Larry