How Often Should You Pressure Wash Your Home?
Pressure washing is a fast fix after your house starts looking drab and outdated. Within hours, your house can be restored to its beautiful appearance by nothing more than high pressure water.
You can rent pressure washing equipment from most home improvement stores, or you can call a St. Louis pressure washing service. It can be a little more costly upfront, but you won’t need to deal with bringing back equipment or the risk of harming your house due to lack of training or experience.
However, pressure washing can damage your home as quickly as it can beautify it. The pressurized water is powerful enough to break windows, damage siding and ruin roof shingles. Therefore, you 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 and environmental factors around that location.
Most professionals encourage having your house pressure washed each year or, no longer than every 2 years.
Any pressure washing pro that tries to tell you that more frequent services are needed is just trying to squeeze more money out of you. However, it’s your home, and if you love how it looks right after a cleaning, you can pressure wash your house many times each year.
By just touching the wood or siding of your house, you should be able to tell if it’s time for a cleaning. The presence of dust, mud and grime can stain the outside of your house permanently if it isn’t washed off from time to time, so you may have to change from a planned schedule if you start to see a lot of buildup between cleanings.
Power washing often can be detrimental, but not doing it enough can leave your house looking lackluster far more than it should. It’s important to note that building materials, especially vinyl siding, are resistant to stains, mold and mildew. These materials protect your house between pressure washings.
Why Pressure Washing is the Preferred Method
Pressure washing is much safer than scrubbing the exterior of your house because you won’t need to climb up and down a ladder with a brush and a bucket while dragging ahose. Power washing can be performed from the ground in most residential situations.
Mold and mildew are living organisms that eat away at home exterior surfaces and make their way into your house. They are not easy to remove, yet it is very easy for these things to grow into colonies on your exterior, particularly on the north side of a home where it doesn’t get much direct sunlight or wind as the other sides of your house.
Plus, 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 impact the appearance. All are factors that have to be considered before you decide to call a nearby pressure washer or attempt the job yourself.
CLIMATE
Factors like humidity and extreme weather events create a perfect environment for mold and mildew to grow. If you live in an area that is rainy, you might also have wind and rain splashing mud on the exterior of your house.
ENVIRONMENT
Pollen, pollution and mold can be more of a problem in some areas than in others. Having a home in a rural area or next to an unpaved road will determine what type of environmental factors impact your house more.
HOME CONDITION
If you do decide to have your house pressure washed, it may be a smart idea to have damaged siding replaced so the high water pressure doesn’t do any more damage. Power washing can also worsen a peeling paint issue.
EXTERIOR FINISH
The methods used for pressure washing are unique to your home’s exterior (brick, siding or paint) and the section of the home. For example, for roof cleaning, a pressure washing company will use soft washing instead of pressure washing to protect the roof shingles. And, the results can vary widely.
When to Pressure Wash Your Home
Determining the correct time to have your house pressure washed is just as important as choosing how often the service should be performed. There are different times throughout the year when pressure washing would be a total waste of time and money. Different times, however, a professional pressure washing service might help you in more ways than appearance.
WEATHER
Don’t waste any money on pressure washing during a rainy time of year. You’ll end up with muddy splatter and mildew by the end of the season anyway. Winter, as an example, isn’t the best time of year. Pressure washing is the 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 work done on your house. Rock, brick or siding may not be tightened into place during a repair like it will normally be, which means you run the risk of harming the area, disrupting the ongoing work and even trapping water under building materials.
BEFORE SELLING
Pressure washing is a great way to increase your home’s curb appeal. It’s the easiest solution for all your home’s exterior surfaces, including sidewalks, porches, driveways, patio furniture and wood and composite decks.
SUNNY DAYS
Pick a sunny day, but don’t choose one that is blazing hot. This is the optimal condition for the exterior surfaces to dry quickly without baking cleaning chemicals onto your home’s exterior.
If you are in an home owner’s association, there may be guidelines about how often you have your house pressure washed or if you can do it by yourself or if you have to hire a professional. You might only be under HOA rules regarding how your house appears, but it’s really up to you to keep it looking good.
Power washing is one of the simplest and most effective ways to clean your entire home. As long as it’s done correctly, it is safe for a multitude of home surfaces and can get rid of years of built up dirt and stains.