How Often Should You Pressure Wash Your Home?
Pressure washing is a quick option once your house starts looking drab and dated. Within hours, your house can be renewed to its beautiful appearance by nothing more than high pressure water.
You can rent pressure washing equipment at home improvement stores, or you can call a Seattle pressure washing service. It can be a little more costly upfront, but you won’t have to deal with bringing back rented equipment or the risk of harming your house due to lack of training or experience.
However, pressure washing can damage your home as fast as it can beautify it. The pressurized water can break windows, damage siding and ruin shingles. Therefore, you really need to be careful about how often you pressure wash your house and who you hire to do it.
Is it Time to Pressure Wash Your Home?
The question of how often to pressure wash your home is one that depends a lot on where your house is located and weather factors around that location.
Most pros will recommend having your house pressure washed every year or, at least every 2 years.
Any pressure washing service that tries to tell you more frequent services are necessary is just trying to squeeze a little more money out of you. However, it’s your house, and if you love how it looks shortly after a cleaning, you can pressure wash your house several times each year.
By touching the wood or siding of your house, you should be able to tell if it needs a cleaning. The presence of dirt, mud and grime can stain the outside of your house permanently if it isn’t removed from time to time, so you could have to deviate from a set schedule if you start to see too much buildup between cleanings.
Power washing often can be detrimental, but not doing it often enough can leave your house looking dirtier far more than it should. It’s important to note that building materials, particularly vinyl siding, are very resistant to stains, mold and mildew. These materials help to protect your house between pressure washings.
Why Pressure Washing is the Preferred Method
Pressure washing is a lot safer than scrubbing the outside of your house because you do not have to climb up and down a ladder with a brush and a bucket while dragging ahose. Power washing can be completed from the ground in most residential situations.
Mold and mildew are organic organisms that can eat away at exterior surfaces and eventually find their way into your house. They are not very easy to get rid of, yet it is extremely easy for these organisms to form colonies on your exterior, particularly on the north side of a home where it usually doesn’t get much sunlight or wind as other sides of your house.
And, pressure washing gets rid of more dirt and grime than manual hand scrubbing.
Factors that Affect Your Home’s Exterior
All of the following items can negatively impact the appearance. All are factors that need to be considered before you decide to call a local pressure washer or think about doing the job on your own.
CLIMATE
Factors like humidity and extreme weather events can create a perfect environment for mold and mildew. If your home is in an area that is rainy, you may also have powerful wind and rain splashing mud on the exterior of your house.
ENVIRONMENT
Pollen, pollution and mold can be bigger threat in some areas than in others. Living in a rural area or next to an unpaved road will determine what types of environmental factors impact your house more.
HOME CONDITION
If you think it is time to have your house pressure washed, it could be a good idea to have damaged siding replaced so the high water pressure won’t do more damage. Power washing can also worsen a peeling paint problem.
EXTERIOR FINISH
The processes used for pressure washing are unique to your home’s exterior (brick, siding or wood) and the area of the home. For example, for roof cleaning, a pressure washing service will use soft washing instead of pressure washing to protect the shingles. Additionally, the results can vary widely.
When to Pressure Wash Your Home
Choosing the right time to have your house pressure washed is just as important as determining how often the service should be performed. There are times throughout the year when pressure washing would be a total waste of time and money. Other times, however, a professional pressure washing service could benefit you in more ways than appearance.
WEATHER
Do not waste money on pressure washing during a rainy season. You’ll end up with mud stains and mildew by the end of the season regardless. Winter, for example, isn’t the best time of year. Pressure washing is most useful at the end of a season, whether it’s spring, summer, fall or winter.
BEFORE/AFTER HOME PROJECTS
Don’t have your house pressure washed the same time you are having different projects done on your house. Rock, brick or siding could not be sealed into place during a repair like it will typically be, so you run the risk of damaging the area, prolonging the ongoing work and even trapping water below building materials.
BEFORE SELLING
Pressure washing is a cost-effective way to increase your curb appeal. It’s the easiest answer for all your home’s outside surfaces, including sidewalks, porches, driveways, patio furniture and wood and composite decks.
SUNNY DAYS
Choose a sunny day, but don’t choose one that is blazing hot. This is the best condition for the exterior surfaces to dry fast without baking cleaning chemicals onto your home’s siding or brick.
If you live in a neighborhood with an HOA, there could be requirements about how regularly you have your house pressure washed or if you can do it on your own or if you have to hire a local company. You may only be under HOA guidelines concerning how your house looks, but it’s usually up to you to keep it looking good.
Power washing is one of the simplest and most effective methods to clean your entire home exterior. As long as it’s done the right way, it is safe for most surfaces and can get rid of months of built up dirt and stains.