How Often Should You Pressure Wash Your Home?
Pressure washing is a fast fix once your home starts to look drab and dated. Within hours, your home can be renewed to its beautiful appearance by 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 Roswell pressure washing service. It will be expensive upfront, but you won’t need to deal with returning rented equipment or run the risk of harming your home because of lack of training or experience.
However, power washing can damage your home as fast as it can renew it. The pressurized water is powerful enough to break windows, damage siding and destroy shingles. Therefore, you have to be careful about how often you power wash your home and who you let 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 home is located and weather factors around that location.
Most pros recommend having your home pressure washed each year or, no longer than every 2 years.
Any pressure washing technician that tells you that more frequent cleanings are necessary is just trying to squeeze more money out of you. However, it’s your home, and if you love how it looks shortly after a cleaning, you can power wash your home several times each year.
By simply touching the wood or siding of your home, you should be able to tell if it needs a cleaning. The presence of dust, mud and grime can stain your home permanently if it isn’t removed periodically, so you may have to change from a planned schedule if you start to see a lot of buildup between cleanings.
Power washing sometimes can be harmful, but not doing it often enough will leave your home looking dirtier far more than it should. It’s important to note that building materials, particularly vinyl siding, are resistant to stains, mold and mildew. These materials protect your home between power washings.
Why Pressure Washing is the Preferred Method
Pressure washing is safer than scrubbing the outside of your home because you won’t need to climb a ladder with a brush and a bucket while dragging a garden hose. Power washing can be accomplished from the ground in most residential situations.
Mold and mildew are organic organisms that eat away at exterior surfaces and eventually find their way into your home. They are not easy to get rid of, yet it is extremely easy for them to form colonies on your exterior, especially on the north side where it usually doesn’t get as much sunlight or wind as other sides of your home.
And, power washing eliminates more dirt and grime than manual hand scrubbing.
Factors that Affect Your Home’s Exterior
All of the below items can negatively impact the appearance. They are all factors that must be considered before you decide to call a professional pressure washer or try to do the job on your own.
CLIMATE
Factors like humidity and extreme weather events create a perfect environment for mold and mildew to grow. If you live in a rainy area, you may also have powerful wind and a lot of rain splashing mud onto the side of your home.
ENVIRONMENT
Pollen, pollution and mold are bigger threat in some areas of Roswell than in others. Living in a more rural area or next to an unpaved road will factor into what type of environmental factors affect your home more.
HOME CONDITION
If you do decide to have your home pressure washed, it may be a good idea to have damaged siding repaired so the high pressure water doesn’t do any more damage. Power washing can also worsen a peeling paint problem.
EXTERIOR FINISH
The techniques 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 technician will use soft washing instead of power washing to protect the shingles. And, the expected results can vary widely based on technique.
When to Pressure Wash Your Home
Determining the correct time to have your home pressure washed is just as important as choosing how often the service has to be performed. There are different times throughout the year when power washing would be a total waste of time and money. Different times, however, a professional pressure washing might benefit you in more ways than appearance.
WEATHER
Do not waste any money on professional power washing in a rainy season. You’ll end up with muddy stains and mildew by the end of the season anyway. Winter, for example, isn’t the best time. Pressure washing is most useful near the end of a season, whether it’s spring, summer, fall or winter.
BEFORE/AFTER HOME PROJECTS
Don’t have your home pressure washed while you are having other work done on your home. Rock, brick or siding may not be sealed into place during a renovation or repair like it should typically be, which means you run the risk of harming the area, disrupting the other project and trapping water underneath building materials.
BEFORE SELLING
Pressure washing is a cost-effective way to increase your home’s curb appeal. It’s the simple answer for all your home’s outside surfaces, including sidewalks, porches, driveways, patio furniture and wood and composite decks.
SUNNY DAYS
Choose a bright, 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 products onto your home’s surfaces.
If you are in an home owner’s association, there may be rules about how often you have your home power washed or if you can do it on your own or if you are required to hire a local company. You may only be under HOA guidelines regarding how your home appears, but it’s really up to you to have it looking maintained.
Power washing is one of the simplest and most effective methods to clean your entire home. As long as it’s done correctly, it is safe for several surfaces and can get rid of months of built up dirt and stains.