Patio furniture, the BBQ and the cushions: packing the yard up before winter

Most of packing up a yard is judgement: this chair will be fine under a cover, that cushion will not. One item is not a judgement call. Ontario's fuels regulator says a propane cylinder may not be stored inside any structure, and a garage is a structure. So patio furniture storage in the GTA splits into two jobs — the cylinder, which has a rule, and everything else, which has a drying time.

Where may a propane cylinder be stored over the winter?

Outside, upright, valve closed, disconnected from the grill. The Technical Standards and Safety Authority, which enforces Ontario's fuels safety rules, states it without qualification: "Propane cylinders may not be used or stored inside any structure." An attached garage is a structure. So is a detached garage, a garden shed, a screened porch that has been walled in, and a basement.

The reasons for bringing it in are all sensible-sounding — the tank will be out of the weather, it will not get stolen, the BBQ is going in anyway so the tank may as well follow. None of them change the rule. Outdoors is where the cylinder goes, and TSSA itself treats year-round outdoor storage as normal: its conditions for a balcony barbecue have the cylinder kept on the balcony, not carried indoors between uses.

Condo and apartment balconies have their own numbers

If the grill lives on a balcony, the building decides first and the clearances decide second. TSSA's position is that barbecues on balconies may be prohibited outright by the municipality, by condominium bylaws, or by the building owner or property manager of a rental — and if they are prohibited by any of those, that settles it. Where a barbecue is permitted, TSSA lists conditions, and two of them are measurements worth knowing before you decide where the tank sits for the winter.

• The balcony has to be open — no enclosures or walls erected around it. A balcony that has been glassed in stops qualifying.
• The cylinder is kept on the balcony and connected to the BBQ. It does not come inside and it does not go down to a locker.
• The relief valve must be at least one metre horizontally from any building opening below it, and three metres from a building air intake. Those are the two distances to pace out, because a balcony that is fine in the middle may not be fine tucked into a corner beside a vent.
• A cylinder is transported in a service elevator; where there is no service elevator you may use the passenger elevator, but you must be alone in it.

The elevator condition applies in both directions, spring and fall, and it is worth knowing before you are standing in a lobby holding a full tank. If you are in a building with rules about the amenity areas and the freight elevator, the same logic we covered in condo cleaning in Mississauga applies here: ask the property manager what the building actually permits before you plan around it.

Is the cylinder you own still fillable?

Check that now, in September, rather than in May standing at an exchange counter. Transport Canada's rule on cylinders is that only cylinders within their requalification period and service life can be filled, and the frequency of requalification depends on the cylinder's specification and the gas it carries. The cylinder itself carries the answer: a facility registered with Transport Canada stamps the requalification month, its own registered mark and the year onto the cylinder when it passes.

Two practical consequences. First, this is not a homeowner job — requalifying, repairing or rebuilding a cylinder may only be done by a facility registered with Transport Canada, so there is nothing you can do to an out-of-date tank except replace or exchange it. Second, the person who enforces it is whoever fills your tank. If the stamped date is the problem, you find out when you are turned away, which is a wasted trip in May and a five-minute look at the collar now.

Exchange programmes sidestep the question entirely, because you hand over the cylinder and receive a different one. If you refill rather than exchange, read the collar before you store it for five months.

Where an old or damaged cylinder goes in Halton, Peel and Toronto

Not the garbage, not the blue bin, and not the curb. Peel puts the reason in writing: a tank in the curbside stream may cause fire or other injury during collection and recycling. All three regions take cylinders free of charge at a household hazardous waste depot, and all three set different limits, which is the reason to read the table before you load the car.

One more Halton detail worth knowing if you are replacing the grill as well as the tank: the Reuse Depot at the same site takes household goods for resale, and its list of unacceptable materials includes barbecues without propane tanks. That puts a dead grill in the scrap metal stream instead, which Halton accepts at the same waste site on the load fee rather than free.

Toronto's own hazardous-waste instructions add a detail that matters on the drive: do not leave products sitting in a car trunk for long periods, particularly in hot weather. In September that is still a live concern for an afternoon trip.

What to clean on the BBQ before it sits for five months

Grease is the whole reason to bother. Burner ports clogged with baked grease and debris in September are still clogged in May, and the first light of the season is when that shows up. TSSA's own start-of-season checklist is the right list to work through now, because doing the inspection half in the fall means you discover you need a hose in September, when you can buy one, instead of on the first warm Saturday in May.

1. 1Burn off, then scrapeRun the grill hot with the lid down to carbonize what is on the grates, then scrape while it is still warm. Cold grease does not come off; warm grease does.
2. 2Clear the burner ports and tubesTSSA's instruction is to use a pipe cleaner or wire to ensure burner ports are free of rust, dirt, spider webs or other debris. Spider webs are named in TSSA's own list, which is a fair indication of how often they turn up inside a burner tube.
3. 3Pull the grease tray and wash itNot scrape — wash. Soft grease left in the tray is a food source sitting against the house all winter, for the same reasons set out in the autumn rodent-proofing post.
4. 4Inspect the hose and replace it if it is cracked or damagedTSSA says to check the hose leading from the tank to the burner and replace it if cracked or damaged. Flex it in your hands in daylight; cracks show at the bends first.
5. 5Leak-test the connectionsBrush a 50/50 water and dish soap solution onto the cylinder connections and hoses with the gas on. If bubbles appear, gas is escaping: tighten the connection, replace the damaged part, and re-test. Do this again at first use in spring — a winter of temperature swings is exactly what loosens a fitting.
6. 6Disconnect, cap, and separateCylinder outside and upright. Grill body wherever you keep it, with the regulator not dangling in the dirt.

Cushions: the part that actually gets ruined

Furniture frames mostly survive neglect. Cushions do not, and the mechanism is moisture rather than cold. Health Canada's list of what mould grows on includes fabrics alongside wood, paper, drywall and insulation, and the signs it tells you to look for are stains or discolouration on fabrics and carpets plus a musty, earthy smell. A cushion that goes into storage damp has five months in the dark to do that.

Drying is the step that gets rushed, and it is the one that decides the outcome. Outdoor cushion foam is thick and holds water in the middle long after the cover feels dry to the hand. Stand them on edge rather than laying them flat, give them a dry day with air moving on both faces, and press hard with a palm before you call it done — if any water comes to the surface, it is not ready.

• Wash with water and dish detergent. Health Canada's own guidance on cleaning mould off a surface is water and dish detergent, and states plainly that there is no need to use bleach. Bleach on outdoor fabric costs you the colour and buys nothing.
• Know what size problem you have. Health Canada classes mould as small at one to three patches each under one square metre, medium above that, and extensive above three square metres — the point at which it says to consider professional help. Cushion-scale spotting is the small category, which is the DIY category.
• Foam that has held water is not a surface you can reach. Cleaning addresses what you can get a cloth onto. If a cushion smells after it has dried, the honest options are replacement or living with it, not a stronger chemical.
• Do not store them in cardboard in the basement. Health Canada's prevention list says to throw out basement clutter because cardboard boxes and old clothes are where mould grows. Breathable bags or a bin with the lid cracked in a heated, dry space beats a sealed box on a concrete floor.
• Aim for 30% to 50% relative humidity wherever they end up. A hygrometer is an inexpensive hardware-store tool, which is Health Canada's own suggestion for measuring it, and it tells you in one reading whether the room you chose is the right one.

Frames, glass and the umbrella

Aluminum and resin frames are the easy case: wash, dry, cover or stack. Steel and wrought iron rust from the fasteners and welds outward, so the useful five minutes is touching up chips with paint now rather than finding the rust bloom in April. Wood needs to be off wet ground, which is the same argument made at length in the decks and fences work.

• Nothing should be left in a position that holds water. Hollow tube legs, chair seats with a dish shape, a table with a lip — water that sits and then freezes splits the thing it is sitting in. Invert chairs or stack them so water runs out.
• Take glass tabletops off the frame and store them flat and supported, not leaning against a wall where a bump becomes a break.
• Dry the umbrella open, then close it. A canopy closed while damp is the mould case from the cushion section with less air and more folds. Open it on a dry day first, even if that means it stands open for an afternoon in the middle of the patio.
• Covers are only as good as what is under them. A cover over a wet cushion holds the water against it. If the furniture is staying out under covers, the cushions still come off and come in.
• Space it so the fall cleanup can happen. Anything stacked on a deck or patio becomes something a crew has to move before leaves and beds can be cleared, so clearing it first keeps a seasonal cleanup on the beds and hard surfaces instead of on furniture shuffling.

Do it yourself — this one is not worth hiring out

Say it plainly: this is an afternoon with two people, and it is not work worth paying for. There is no equipment involved, no ladder, no height, and the only regulated item — the cylinder — is handled by carrying it ten feet and standing it upright. The honest advice is a Saturday and a hose.

1. Walk the yard and find the cylinder. Move it outside if it is not already. This takes two minutes and is the only step with a rule behind it.
2. Read the stamped date on the cylinder collar while you are holding it, and note whether you are exchanging or refilling in spring.
3. Strip every cushion off every seat and get them onto something that drains, on edge, on the first dry day in the forecast.
4. Clean the grill while the cushions dry — burner ports, grease tray, hose, leak test.
5. Wash frames, touch up chips, take glass off tables, dry the umbrella open.
6. Move cushions indoors only once they pass the palm-press test, into breathable storage in a dry room, not a sealed box in the basement.
7. Load anything being thrown out — a dead grill, a failed cylinder — and check the depot's published limits and hours first.

Where a crew earns its money is the work around the patio rather than the patio set itself: the beds, the leaves, the blow-off of hard surfaces, the things that need doing at the same time of year and take longer than an afternoon. If that is already on the list, having the furniture cleared first is what makes the rest go quickly.