Why does my artificial turf have rust-colored stains?
Rust stains on turf almost always come from metal furniture, planters or fence posts sitting directly on the fibers, or from irrigation on a private well with iron in the water. A ring the size of a chair foot points to metal; an orange tint across a sprinkler arc points to the water. The stain lifts with a rust remover made for synthetics, but it comes back until the source is dealt with.
Furniture feet or well water
Any unsealed metal in constant contact with damp turf, wrought-iron chair legs, a rusting planter, a metal fence post base, weeps rust into the fibers directly under and around it, usually a small stain that matches the shape of the object. Iron-heavy well water sprayed through irrigation oxidizes into an orange-brown residue everywhere it lands repeatedly, a similar pattern to the mineral deposits on our white chalky patches page, just rust-colored instead of white, and often following the same sprinkler pattern. Myrtle Beach city water is soft and low in the minerals that cause this, so a rust pattern on city water usually traces back to furniture rather than the tap.
How to check
Shape tells you which. A stain that exactly matches the outline of a chair leg, planter base or post is furniture. A stain radiating out from a sprinkler head in the same fan shape as its throw is irrigation. To confirm, move the furniture, or run the irrigation and watch where new color shows up next time.
Brian prices it by square foot before any work starts, and every job ends blown clean.
What fixes it
The step-by-step removal method, with dwell times and what not to use, is in our guide to removing rust stains from artificial turf. The short version is below.
Lift the furniture or planter off the turf, rubber feet, a plant caddy, or a paver pad underneath stops new staining, then treat the existing mark with a rust remover made for carpet or synthetic turf, never a full-strength acid or a generic concrete-and-metal rust cleaner, which can bleach or degrade the fiber. Let it dwell per the label, agitate gently, rinse thoroughly. Irrigation-caused rust on the fibers is treated the same way, but stopping new staining from well water means addressing the water itself with a whole-house or point-of-use iron filter, a plumber's job rather than ours; we treat the turf. This is generally a deep stain treatment, $75–$150.
Keeping it off
Put rubber feet, a paver, brick or plastic pad under any metal furniture or planter that lives on the turf permanently. If irrigation is the source, redirect or cap the heads that throw onto the turf the same way you would for mineral deposits, and consider treating the well water itself if it is bothering more than the lawn.
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