Never Power wash my deck, house….

It may seem weird for a power washing company to say this, right? Our phone rings and someone wants their home or deck cleaned but they say NOOOOO power washing it will damage their house or deck. Well they are right if someone doesn’t know what they are doing here are a couple examples:

Pressure with anything in life is generally bad. High pressure is especially bad for wood, composite and siding and brick. Lets take a look at how high pressure affects each.

Wood decks- Wood is soft, high pressure can cut into and blow out the soft fibers of the wood leaving prominent ridges and rough texture in the wood. 

It is not the pressure that does the damage but the tip used and the gallons per minute a machine pulls from the water source. It’s the flushing power which cleans the deck. This is why we use a deck brightener  first, to loosen the mold and algae so when we pressure wash we can use low pressure.

Home owner grade pressure washers are a problem. They have very little gallons per minute flush so homeowners try to over compensate with added pressure. The good thing about most damage with a pressure washer with wood is that it can be sanded out. But once the soft fibers in the grain of the wood are removed, you can’t replace them.

This is a result of too much pressure to siding

Composite (Trex, Azak, Evergrain)- Composite decking cannot be sanded out any damage to composite caused by pressure is permanent and an eyesore. We have  a special proprietary detergent we use for composite decks. This cleaner was introduced to us when we were hired to mitigate the Trex lawsuit. They provided to us a special blend of detergent which would clean their product without causing damage. This is what we use.

Siding- at this point most people have vinyl siding on their house and it interesting because we’re seeing things come full circle. When I started pressure washing nearly a quarter centry ago, everyone had aluminum siding with hail and storm damage. To decrease cost combined with  the idea of new and better everyone went to vinyl. The problem we had with aluminum was the painted surface would fade and oxydize and look chalky.

Vinyl was never supposed to do this as the color was baked in. This is wrong, after baking in the sun for years, were seeing it again. Not only is oxidation ugly to look at but you cannot remove it evenly. High pressure is the worst at bringing the oxidation out as it makes lines and stains and marks where ever it touches. We utilize a low pressure rinse with a detergent and a 5 point system to clean houses. It removes all the mold mildew and algae, not oxidation, that has grown on your siding and worse on the north side (it doesn’t get sun)

In fact, rain storms are heavier than the pressure we use. Our system is so popular, many of the top painting companies utilize our services to prepare a home for painting. They hate pressure washing, they like our work.

If your thinking about painting- a house wash first can save you 1000’s

Brick by itself is fine to pressure wash but especially older patios that have mildew and algae accumulation can really be brightened up with cleaning but using high pressure will blow out the mortor joints. When this happens water is allowed to creap in freeze expand and ruin brick walks.

New Concrete- has not cured and is still soft so pressure washing will permanently etch the concrete. We use a detergent and low pressure.

Do you have concerns about using high pressure?

If so, we always recommend starting with a FREE 12- point inspection because we don’t know what needs to be done unless we look at it first. Please fill out the form to your right