How Often Should You Pressure Wash Your Home?
Pressure washing is a fast option once your house starts to look drab and dated. Within hours, your house can be returned to its beautiful appearance with nothing more than high pressure water.
You can rent power washing equipment from many home improvement stores, or you can enlist the help of a Rialto pressure washing service. It will be a little more costly upfront, but you don’t have to deal with bringing back equipment or run the risk of harming your house because of lack of training or experience.
However, power washing can damage your home as quickly as it can beautify it. The pressurized water can break windows, damage siding and destroy shingles. Therefore, you really need to be careful about how often you power 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 on where your house is located and weather factors around that location.
Most pros recommend having your house pressure washed each year or, at least every 2 years.
Any pressure washing pro that tells you more frequent services are necessary is probably trying to squeeze a little more money out of you. However, it’s your house, and if you love the way it looks shortly after a cleaning, you can power wash your house multiple times each year.
By just touching the exterior of your house, you will be able to tell if it needs a cleaning. The presence of dust, 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 change from a set schedule if you start to see too much buildup between cleanings.
Power washing often can be detrimental, but not doing it enough will leave your house looking dirtier far more than it should. It’s important to note that home building materials, particularly vinyl siding, are very resistant to stains, mold and mildew. These types of materials protect your house between power washings.
Why Pressure Washing is the Preferred Method
Pressure washing is much safer than scrubbing the exterior of your house because you won’t have to climb a ladder with a rag and a bucket while pulling ahose. Power washing can be performed from the ground in almost all residential situations.
Mold and mildew are organisms that eat away at exterior surfaces and make their way into your house. They are not very easy to remove, yet it is really easy for them to form colonies on your home, particularly on the north side of a home where it usually doesn’t get as much direct sunlight or wind as the other sides of your house.
And, power washing eliminates more dirt and grime than hand scrubbing.
Factors that Affect Your Home’s Exterior
All of the below items can impact the appearance of a home. They are all factors that need to be considered before you decide to hire a professional pressure washer or attempt the job yourself.
CLIMATE
Factors like humidity and extreme weather create a perfect environment for mold and mildew. If your home is in a rainy area, you might also have wind and rain splashing mud onto the exterior of your house.
ENVIRONMENT
Pollen, pollution and mold can be bigger problem in some areas than in others. Having a home in a more rural area or next to an unpaved road will factor into what type of environmental factors affect your house more.
HOME CONDITION
If you do decide to have your house pressure washed, it could be a good 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 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 opposed to power washing to protect the shingles. Also, the results can vary widely based on technique.
When to Pressure Wash Your Home
Determining the right time to have your house pressure washed is just as important as determining how often the service has to be performed. There are times during the year when power 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 money on power washing in a rainy time of year. You’ll end up with muddy stains and mildew at the end of the season anyway. Winter, for example, isn’t the best time. 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 plan to have your house pressure washed the same time you are having other projects done on your house. Rock, brick or siding could not be fastened into place during a repair like it should typically be, so you run the risk of harming the area, prolonging the ongoing work and even trapping water under building materials.
BEFORE SELLING
Pressure washing is a great way to increase your curb appeal. It’s the simple 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 best condition for the exterior surfaces to dry quickly without baking cleaning products onto your home’s exterior.
If you are in an home owner’s association, there could be rules about how often you have your house power washed or whether you can do it by yourself or if you are required to hire a professional. You might only be under HOA guidelines concerning how your house looks, but it’s usually up to you to keep it looking maintained.
Power washing is one of the quickest and most effective methods to clean your entire home. As long as it’s done right, it is safe for a multitude of surfaces and can eliminate years of dirt and stains.