How to Care For, Clean & Store Your Hammock For Winter The Right Way

I'm Paul from Key West Hammock Company, and I spent twenty-five years behind the counter of our hammock shop in Key West, teaching anybody who walked through the door everything I know about hammocks.

In all that time, the hammocks people brought back to me in bad shape were almost never worn out from use. Nine times out of ten they had been left hanging through the fall until they were soaked and stained with leaf litter, then rolled up damp and shoved in a corner of the garage until spring. The summer didn't hurt that hammock. The way it got put away did.

So here's everything I'd tell you across the counter about cleaning your hammock, drying it properly, and putting it away for the winter so it comes back out next year looking like it did the day you bought it. Everything below is written for spreader bar hammocks — the classic style with the wooden bars at each end, like our Jumbo Caribbean. That's what most people picture when they think of a hammock, and it's what most people own.

First, the honest part

A hammock is weather resistant, not weatherproof. Ours are built to live outdoors — polyester rope, stainless rings, hardware that won't rust out on you — but nothing hanging in the open weather stays untouched by it forever. Sun, rain and wind all take a little each season.

Which sets up a trade-off, and it's yours to make rather than mine. The more you take the hammock down and put it away, the longer it will last. But the more it's hanging there ready to use, the more you'll actually get in it — and the hammock you use every evening is doing its job, even if it wears out sooner for the trouble.

There's no wrong answer. Some people would rather use it hard for a few seasons and replace it. Others would rather take five minutes here and there and keep the same hammock going for many years. What I'd hate to see is somebody land in the middle by accident, leaving it out all the time and never getting in it. The tips below work either way. Take the ones that suit how you want to live with it.

Tip 1: Hang it on hooks so you can take it down in two minutes

The single biggest reason a hammock stays out in bad weather is that taking it down is a nuisance. If your hammock is knotted directly to a tree or tied off to a post, getting it down means undoing the rope, and putting it back up means tying it again — and on a gray afternoon in November, you'll leave it out there instead.

So set it up to come down easily. Hang the hammock from hooks, so that each end simply lifts off. With rope you can still do this — I walk through the method in How to Hang a Hammock with Rope. Tie your rope to the tree and finish it with an S hook that the hammock's end ring drops onto. The rope and the straps stay up on the trees; only the hammock comes inside. Now taking it down is a two-minute job, and you'll actually do it.

That matters twice a year and then some. It matters at the end of the season, when you know you won't be using it again until spring. And it matters any time a stretch of bad weather is coming — a week of rain, an early freeze, a storm blowing through. Days of soaking with nobody in it is how a hammock spends the worst part of its life, and it's entirely avoidable if the thing lifts off in a minute.

Tip 2: How to keep debris and stains off a rope hammock

This is the smallest habit in this article and it does more good than anything else on the list. Every time you walk past the hammock — whether you're going to lie in it or not — grab one edge, flip it over, and give it a good shake. Leaves, twigs, dust and whatever else has settled in the weave comes straight out.

Do the same thing before you get in. It takes about five seconds, and it means you're not lying down on a night's worth of debris and pressing it into the rope.

The reason this works so well is timing. Debris that comes out today is just debris. Debris that sits in the weave through a few rainstorms turns to compost, and that's what stains the rope. A shake in passing keeps the hammock from ever getting to the stage where it needs a real cleaning.

Tip 3: Bring it in when the wind picks up

An empty hammock catches the wind like a sail. Once it starts turning, it doesn't stop at half a turn — it spins around and around, and every rotation twists the end cords up tighter on themselves.

All that twisting concentrates in one place: right where the cords come out of the clew knot at each end. That's the tightest, hardest-working point on the whole hammock, and it's where the stress lands. It won't fail on you in a single windy afternoon. But do it over and over across a few seasons and you're steadily using up the life of the cords, for no reason at all, on days nobody was even lying in it.

There's a second problem if your hammock lives on a stand. A spinning hammock swings the spreader bars into the stand's uprights, and wood against steel damages both — dents and bare patches on the bars, scratched finish on the stand. In a strong enough blow, the stand itself can go over.

So when the forecast turns — a storm coming through, a windy stretch of days — lift it off the hooks and bring it in. This is exactly why Tip 1 matters. If it takes two minutes, you'll do it.

Tip 4: How to clean a rope hammock

Pick a sunny day with a bit of a breeze. That's not a detail you can skip — the drying matters as much as the washing, and a hammock washed on a gray afternoon is a hammock that goes away damp.

You'll need:

• A bucket of warm soapy water — plain dish soap is fine
• A soft brush for the stubborn spots
• A garden hose

Leave the hammock hanging where it is. Start by soaking the whole thing down with the hose. Then pour a little of the soapy water onto the bed and work it into the weave with your hands, moving along the hammock a section at a time rather than trying to do the whole bed at once. Your hands will do most of the job.

For the areas that need more — a stain, a patch of built-up debris, bird droppings — go at it with the soft brush. Soft is the operative word. You're cleaning the surface of the cords, not scouring them, and a stiff brush will fuzz up the rope and do more harm than the dirt was doing.

Then rinse, and rinse well. This is the step people cut short. Soap left behind in the weave attracts dirt and gives you a hammock that gets grubby faster than it did before you washed it. Go over the whole bed with fresh water from the hose until the water running off is clear.

Now leave it hanging in the sun and the breeze until it is thoroughly dry — and thoroughly means all the way through the clew knots and end cords, not just dry to the touch on the bed. That's where water hides.

While it's drying, give the wooden spreader bars a wipe down with a damp cloth. The bars don't need the soap-and-brush treatment the bed does. Then let them dry in the sun along with the rest of it.

How to get mold and mildew stains out of a white hammock

If your hammock is white, you have an easier route for the mold stains, and it's the one I'd use.

Shake the hammock out first to get the loose debris off. Wet the whole thing down with the hose, then spray it with the same mold and mildew remover you'd use in your shower — the ordinary bathroom stuff off the supermarket shelf. Give it ten or fifteen minutes to work. Then hose it out really well, and I mean really well: you want every bit of that spray rinsed out of the weave. Air dry it in the sun and the breeze the same as before.

That's the advantage of white rope. Polyester doesn't mind the bleach and there's no color to fade, so the stains come out and the hammock comes back looking new. On a colored hammock, stick with the soap and water method above.

Tip 5: How to store a hammock for winter

Eventually the season comes to an end, and how you handle that last day decides what you pull out in the spring.

Wait for a sunny, breezy day and give the hammock one last good cleaning — the full wash from Tip 4, not a quick rinse. Then let it dry completely, and give it longer than you think it needs. A hammock that goes into storage with any dampness left in the clew knots is a hammock that comes out smelling like a wet basement.

Once it's properly dry, unhook it, roll it up nice and tight, and put it somewhere dry and enclosed.

That last part matters more than people expect. Over the years I've lost count of how many customers have told me that rodents got into their hammock over the winter while it sat in the shed. Soft rope in a quiet corner of an outbuilding is exactly what a mouse is looking for in November, and they don't just nest in it — they chew it apart to build with. Insects will settle into it too, given a damp spot and a few months of no disturbance.

So a shed floor or an open corner of the garage isn't enough on its own. Put the hammock in a tote with a lid on it, or bring it inside and stash it in a closet.

If you're buying a tote for the job, check the length before you check the price. A spreader bar hammock is typically 55 inches wide, so the box needs to be long enough to take the rolled hammock without you having to bend the bars to get the lid down. A standard long under-bed tote usually does it; a square storage bin usually doesn't.

Either way — tote or closet — keeps the rodents out, and either one is fine as long as the hammock went in dry. A sealed tote will happily keep a damp hammock damp for five months, which is the one way this can still go wrong.

One last thing, for when you're buying your next one

Most hammocks end up under trees, and a hammock under a tree catches everything the tree drops on it. Leaves, twigs, berries, and bird droppings all collect in the bed and stay there.

Our hammocks are woven from polyester rope, and polyester itself will not rot, mold or mildew. That's the good news. But the debris that lands on it is organic, and once that starts to break down in the weave, it molds — and that mold will stain the rope underneath it.

Which is why the easiest maintenance decision you'll ever make happens before you own the hammock: pick a color that suits the spot. For a wide open lawn or a poolside, hang whatever color you like. But for a challenging location — under trees, near a bird feeder, anywhere shaded and damp — a darker color like mocha or tan will hide the marks of a hard season far better than a light one.

There's a flip side to that, though. Polyester takes bleach well, and white rope is the one color you can bleach without worrying about fading it. So if you're the kind of person who's happy to give the hammock a wash a couple of times a season, white under a tree is perfectly workable, and it'll come back looking new in a way a colored hammock won't. The choice is really this: a darker hammock hides a hard season, a white one cleans up from it. Pick based on how much maintenance you actually plan to do, not how much you intend to.

And if the spot you're dealing with is genuinely brutal — heavy tree cover, constant droppings — a Mayan hammock closes up on itself when nobody's in it, so it collects far less of what falls. That's a buying decision rather than a maintenance one, and I've compared the two styles properly in Mayan vs Spreader Bar Hammock.

Hammock care questions I get asked most

Can you leave a rope hammock outside all winter?

You can, and it won't rot — polyester rope doesn't mind the cold or the wet. But it will age faster. Months of soaking, freezing and wind-spinning with nobody using it takes life out of the cords and the spreader bars for no return at all. Bringing it in is the single easiest thing you can do to add years to it.

Can you put a rope hammock in the washing machine?

No. The bed will tangle, the clew knots will bind, and the spreader bars won't go in at all. Wash it hanging, with a hose and soapy water, the way described above.

Does polyester hammock rope get moldy?

The rope itself doesn't. Polyester has nothing in it for mold to feed on. What molds is the organic debris sitting in the weave — leaves, pollen, bird droppings — and that mold stains the rope underneath. Keep the debris out and you won't get the stain.

What size box do I need to store a hammock?

A spreader bar hammock is typically 55 inches wide, so look for a tote at least that long internally. Under-bed storage boxes are usually the right shape; standard square bins usually aren't.

How do I get stains out of a white rope hammock?

Wet it down, spray it with an ordinary bathroom mold and mildew remover, leave it ten to fifteen minutes, then rinse it out thoroughly and air dry it in the sun. White polyester takes bleach without fading, so the stains come out and the rope comes back bright.

Why any of this is worth doing

None of this is hard work. A shake in passing, a wash on a sunny day, and a lid on a tote. But it changes what you own.

A hammock that gets looked after is still the same hammock in ten years — same bright rope, same solid bars, same one you bought. A hammock that gets left out and put away wet is a three-season purchase you end up replacing, and it never looks quite right after the first winter. The difference between those two outcomes is about an hour of work a year, spread across a season.

Do it once this fall and you'll see for yourself in the spring.

Paul Ashwell is the founder of Key West Hammock Company and spent twenty-five years running the company's hammock shop in Key West. For care details specific to your product, see our Product Care Information page.