When you’re inside on a windy afternoon, drinking some tea and watching the trees sway, the last thing you want to see is your outdoor sectional flying through the air, followed by the cantilever umbrella! You may need some patio furniture weights. Patio furniture has a pesky tendency to lift off of the ground or blow over.
These errant attempts at flight can damage the furniture, the surrounding garden, and occasionally bystanders.
You’ve likely tried a few strategies in an attempt to keep your furniture secure, but so far they haven’t worked.
So what else is there to do? Here are some ideas!
Before You Begin
Before you figure out the best way to keep your patio furniture in place, here are a few tasks to give context to your goals.
1. Take Stock of Your Furniture Pieces
Take an inventory of your furniture pieces, and see which ones are most likely to blow around. Dining chairs are particularly light, so they often go sailing, as are sofa sectional pieces, especially the new modern style PE-wicker sectional sets with light aluminum frames. If you need to know how to keep uthe mbrella from blowing away, here are some great solutions for both traditional patio umbrellas and for cantilever umbrellas.
2. Determine the Primary Wind Origin Direction
Ascertaining the origin direction of the wind can be quite helpful in determining how to stop your patio furniture from blowing over. Depending on the location of your patio area relative to hills, trees, walls, and adjacent houses and structures, there may be wind tunnel effects that impact the wind flow through your patio. So go grab your weather vane and —
You don’t have a weather vane? Neither do we. Stand outside on your patio on a few windy days and close your eyes. Slowly turn around and feel the wind against your face. Focus on where the wind is most direct against both sides of your face, and the sound of the wind is equal in both ears.
This will give you a good sense of the wind directional flow through your patio or garden space. With luck, most of it is coming from the same direction, which will make the patio furniture weighting strategy a little easier.
Alternately, you could pick up a weather station like the Davis Vantage Vue or AcuRite Wireless Weather Station to give you some direction!
Patio Furniture Weights: How to Keep Patio Furniture from Blowing Away
Now that you know what you need to weight down, and where the wind is coming from, here are some ideas on how to keep everything from going skyward. If you’re worried about theft, be sure to check out our article on how to protect patio furniture from theft.
1. Use Patio Furniture Weights or Sand Bags
- Large Capacity: Adopted by round bottom design, increase sand capacity...
- Stable Attached: There is a hook and loop strap that is attached to...
- High-quality Material: These weight bags are the best around and are...
- Good Flexiblity: The weight bags hold up to 29 pounds on sand, rock,...
- Multiple Usage: Stabilize any Instant Canopy, Pop Up canopy, umbrella,...
Last update on 2024-10-24 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
The cheapest way to weight down your furniture is to pick up a few sandbags from your local home improvement store. Just place them on the furniture pieces, and you should be good to go. But they can break and get sand everywhere, and they generally aren’t pretty.
Going beyond simple sandbags, you can use outdoor furniture weights like these ABCCanopy Weight Bags to hold down your furniture. The ABCCanopy bags work wonderfully on gazebos, tents, cantilever umbrellas, patio umbrellas, and really on all sorts of patio furniture. Each bag can hold up to 40 lbs of sand, and they can easily attach to furniture legs with hook and loop straps. They are also much more secure than simply using sandbags, and are less likely to break and spill sand everywhere.
You can even place individual bags on chairs as chair weights.
Of course, you’ll need to pick up some sand from your local home improvement store to fill these.
2. Secure Your Furniture with Deck Down Anchors
- Easy to use tie down anchor kit that secures that secures outdoor...
- Features compact design constructed of metal plate, 8" black zip tie,...
- Tie down anchor kit comes assembled and allows quick and easy...
- Installation with a slip-zip-clip; slip the small plate through your...
- Pull up d-ring in anchor allows you to secure item down with bungee...
Last update on 2024-10-24 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
If your outdoor furniture is placed on a deck, rather than a concrete patio, you could secure the furniture using deck down anchors.
These clever little security mechanisms work like a wire tie to attach your furniture to the deck. What users do is to push the metal washer material in between the floorboards of the deck, and then attach the other side to the furniture. The washer acts as a stop to prevent your patio furniture from moving more than a few inches.
If your deck boards are placed too close together, you won’t be able to insert the washer material between the boards, and these won’t work for you.
How to Anchor Your Patio Furniture to concrete
If your patio furniture is sitting on a material that can be drilled, you could install some expanding eye bolts into the concrete or deck to provide a location for a tie or chain to be used. Once these eye bolts have been installed, you can wrap rope or chain around your patio furniture, and then through the eye bolts. This will prevent the furniture from blowing away.
Note that you’ll need a hammer drill to install these into concrete. If you don’t have one, you can usually rent one at your local home improvement store.
Last update on 2024-10-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
3. Use Sectional Sofa Fasteners or Wire Ties
- ★ LINE UP YOUR FURNITURE: Prevents your patio furniture or sectional...
- ★ DO MEASUREMENTS BEFORE PURCHASE: please MUST measure your sofa...
- ★ SIZE MATCH: This type of connector is used for clipping two tubes...
- ★ SET OF 8 PIECE FASTENERS: Recommends 2 fasterner per two adjoining...
- ★ DURABLE PLASTIC MATERIAL: Made from strong all-weather durable...
Last update on 2024-10-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
You may have an outdoor sectional sofa with multiple pieces. Many of these sectional sofas look great, and allow for multiple configurations in different orientations. When pieces are adjacent to each other, it’s a good idea to use sectional sofa fastener clips to group the pieces into one larger and weighter piece. These clips will hold the sectional pieces together so that they don’t slide apart, and will also create a single mass of furniture, which is much more wind-resistant.
Many sectionals come with these clips, but some don’t. If you don’t want to go and buy sectional connector clips, you can also use regular wire ties, which may already have in a toolbox. If not, you can find wire ties at your local home improvement store.
4. Choose Heavy Patio Furniture Materials
If you know your patio is in a windy spot, and you haven’t yet purchased your furniture, you may want to shy away from aluminum framed rattan, PVC, or other light weight materials. These pieces tend to be on the lighter side, and are much more likely to go woosh on a windy day.
Stick to steel, wrought iron, teak, acacia, and other heavy materials to start with, and you’ll have much less concern with pieces blowing around on windy days. These may be a little bit more of a hassle to move around and re-position than lighter furniture pieces, but they are more likely to stay put, and are sure to be durable outdoor furniture materials.
Take a look at our guide to patio furniture sets for more information on different types of furniture.
5. Cover Your Furniture
By using large furniture covers, you can create “groups” of furniture, tied by the cover, that are larger and heavier than single furniture pieces alone. Consider a large cover placed over an outdoor dining table and chairs. The cover is tied to multiple chairs at the same time, and results in all of the chairs secured together, and to the table, making the group much more difficult to move around in the wind.
Once the cover is on the larger group of furniture pieces, you could consider placing some further patio furniture weights like sandbags or the E-Z Up Patio Furniture Weight Bags mentioned above.
If you have a sectional sofa, rattan furniture covers can certainly help keep them grouped and stable.
6. Stack Furniture When Possible
If your furniture can be stacked, you should almost always stack it when not in use. Piling the furniture up groups the furniture, and makes all of the individual pieces into one weighty piece. If you have 6+ chairs, consider two stacks, as one really tall stack can get top-heavy and topple.
7. Try ReadyAmerica Clear Museum Gel
- Clear adhesive gel
- Ensures collectibles won't fall from shelves during an earthquake
- Removable, reusable, and non-toxic
- Won't stain or otherwise mark furniture
- Four-ounce container. Not designed for hanging pictures or posters on...
Last update on 2024-10-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Museum Gel is designed primarily to hold objects down in the case of an earthquake, specifically glass and crystal. However, this gel will work on just about anything. It will help to hold down your patio furniture, though we don’t suggest getting it near upholstered items.
The Museum Gel is clear, and is a fairly strong adhesive that is removable, and should not leave any residue behind. Simply apply it to the bases of your furniture, and press down onto the floor, be it concrete, wood, etc. Let it sit for a little while, and it will form a lasting bond.
The main downside to this patio furniture security strategy is that it becomes difficult to move your furniture around. If you have a patio sectional that you like to re-arrange depending on the number of guests you’re entertaining, the gel can be a hassle. But for mostly stationary pieces like dining tables, Adirondack chairs, etc. this stuff can work great.
To remove the gel, simply twist the furniture loose, and eventually, the bond will break. You can clean up the gel and re-use it elsewhere.
Another concern is that it may lose strength in sunny, hot conditions, but it is inexpensive enough that you can replace the gel from time to time if the bond fails.
8. Use Bungee Cords to Secure Patio Furniture
By wrapping your furniture up with bungee cords, you can help group pieces together for added patio furniture stability in a similar manner to using a cover. You can also tie individual pieces to stationary objects. For example, you could tie your chairs to the outdoor fireplace, or tie the tea table to the grill. Each additional piece you add will increase the overall weight.
9. Plant a Hedge to Buffer Against Wind
Adding greenery to a garden or patio area is almost never a bad idea, unless you hate shade! You could consider building a hedge, or wind break, along the path the wind primarily flows through your property. Assuming you’ve determined the wind direction, think about how a hedge would look as a break along the windward direction.
Personally, we’re fans of boxwood hedges, but there are a wide variety of options to choose from. Take a look at this list from Better Homes and Gardens for further hedge ideas.
A couple of aspects to consider before you plant a hedge are:
Height
Consider the target height of the hedge, and how the hedge will impact views and sun exposure. Depending on how large the plants are when you plant them, the hedge may take years to grow in to a satisfying amount.
Maintenance
Hedges are a lot of work to keep under control. If you don’t, they become a forest, and it can be very hard to prune them back once they’ve gotten out of control. If you’re not much of a gardener, and don’t really want to pay landscapers to take care of your hedges, you may want to look into other strategies to help keep your furniture in place.
10. Velcro Furniture Straps – How to Secure Outdoor Cushions
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- PRESS AND SET STRIPS - Simple to use pre-cut Strips, just clean...
Last update on 2024-10-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
If the cushions on your patio set do not have ties included, they may fly away if no one is sitting on them. As an alternative to cushion ties, you can hold down patio furniture cushions using Velcro adhesive straps [Amazon Link]. Attach one side to the underside of the cushion, and the other to the frame of the furniture. This solution is only as good as the backing adhesive on the Velcro, but it is cheap, and is often better than getting all new cushions with straps on them.
11. Bring Your Patio Furniture Inside
Outdoor patio furniture is often quite beautiful, and may even be more functional than indoor furniture. When not in use, you can consider bringing your patio furniture inside and using it for indoor seating. And if you’re shopping for furniture, consider indoor-outdoor chairs and furniture from the get-go.
Just don’t bring the grill inside and then use it!
Do you stock Patio Furniture? I have had complete set delivered to my address 20 Nelson Road, Bognor Regis. This wrong because I not ordered this item.
No, we just write about it.
Is there a way of using right angle brackets and pig screws to fasten the ratan furniture to the decking.?