How to Keep Patio Rug in Place

Have you noticed your outdoor patio rug keeping trying to blow away with the wind? If so, we’ll show you some different ways to keep your patio rug in place.

Depending on where you life and the direction your patio faces, you might have a lot of wind on your patio. This can be frustrating if you’re constantly adjusting your patio rug that has blown over.

We’ll discuss a few options below that are very easy to keep your patio rug in place. We will also talk about some options that you should NOT do so you don’t damage your rug or deck.

Place Heavy Furniture On Top

The simplest way to keep a patio rug in place is to place heavy furniture on top of it. In our situation, we have one loveseat and two chairs on each end of our rug with a coffee table in the middle.

Whether it’s an outdoor sofa and chairs or a large dining table in the middle. The furniture will keep the rug in place while also creating a functional living or dining space in your backyard.

An outdoor patio rug can be a statement piece and help define your patio outdoor seating area. Placing seating on top of the carpet is the easiest fix to keeping your rug in place.

Now, let’s move on to the next fix.

Place Weighted Potted Plants On Top

If you’re not thinking about placing furniture in this space, your other option is to place weighted, potted plants on top of the rug. 

A single potted plant can do the trick. However, keep in mind that large gusts of wind may cause the rest of the rug to maneuver around. 

That said, you might consider adding at least two potted plants on top of the rug.

Use Outdoor Carpet Tape

When you want to keep something in place, the best option is tape. But your everyday tape won’t do the trick for outdoor spaces. 

You need to find carpet tape specifically designed for the outdoors. Outdoor tape is a handy item that’s double-sided and created to keep your rug in place. 

This option is typically best suited for flat, concrete surfaces. It is not recommended for decks, especially composite. It will stain a composite deck and you’ll have no way of fixing it if you want to remove the rug.

You can sand out any stain on a regular wood deck with carpet tape.

Use an Outdoor Non-Slip Rug Pad

While rugs are a great addition to any backyard space, the downside is that they can slip and slide. Not only does this cause a potential safety hazard, but it can make your backyard look unkempt and messy. What’s the optimal solution aside from anchoring it down with heavy furniture? 

Outdoor non-slip rug pads. There are several outdoor rug pads on the market. Your goal is to find one that is non-slip, which will ensure your rug stays in place – leaving you with a beautiful, well-maintained, and safe area.

Outdoor non-slip rug pads are excellent for all surfaces but they’re especially recommended for wood decks. Outdoor tape is not good on wood decks, so the non-slip rug pad is a great alternative.

Stake It Into the Ground

If your patio area is just dirt or grass, you can use stakes to keep it in place. Make sure to stake it on each corner to keep it secure. Outdoor rug stakes come with a large washer that help keeps the stake from going through the carpet holes.

Be careful staking certain outdoor rugs. You don’t want to create holes in your rug. Most recyclable plastic outdoor rugs have tiny weave holes that you can slip the stake through, causing no damage.

You can be 100% confident that your rug won’t move around, even in the windiest conditions, with staking.  

Use Rug Weights

You might be asking what in the world is “rug weights”. Actually it’s just a new term for rug grippers or corner rug pads. They are most helpful when you have an outdoor rug with curled up corners.

Along with helping keep your rug corners down, there is a gripper material that also helps keep the rug sticking to the floor underneath.

These “rug weights” are another way to help keep your outdoor rug in place and to keep them from being a tripping hazard with curled up edges.

How Not to Keep An Outdoor Rug in it’s Place

Now that we talked about the best ways to keep your rug in place, I wanted to address several options that I’ve read on the internet that will do more harm than good.

Screw your rug to your deck.

Yes you read that right, someone actually suggests to make extra holes in your deck to hold your rug down. There are obvious reasons you shouldn’t do this. The biggest reason not to do this is putting holes in your deck allows moisture in to speed up wood rot.

Second, what will you do when you don’t want a rug in that particular area? You’ll have to replace the deck boards that you damaged.

Buy A Heavy Rug

This suggestion is also wrong. The last thing you want to do is buy a heavy rug, that is only intended for indoor use and place it outdoors.

Most outdoor rugs are lightweight so they don’t retain excess dirt and water and made with synthetic materials. They are easy to shake clean and fast to dry.

A heavy indoor wool rug placed outside will get moldy very quickly since the wool fibers won’t be able to dry out. It will also hold a ton of dirt and look dirty very quickly.

Caulk your outdoor rug to your outdoor patio

Yes, that’s another suggestion I’ve read on the internet. Caulk will damage your outdoor rug. Once it cures, there’s no effective way of getting it all the way off.

Caulk also can damage the patio or deck you’re attaching the rug to. While it won’t affect concrete if it is bare, if the concrete is painted the paint may come up with the caulk once you try to remove it.

Removing caulk from a wood deck can damage the finish. Using acetone or sanding is the only way to get caulk off a wood surface.

Conclusion

I hope we gave you some good suggestions to keep your outdoor rug in place on your patio or deck. Once you have it secured, here’s some tips on how to keep your outdoor rug clean.

And if nothing else, I hope we explained why not to use the other methods to hold down your outdoor rug saving you time, money and a big headache.