How Often Should You Pressure Wash Your Home?
Pressure washing is a fast solution after your home starts to look drab and dated. Within just a couple of hours, your home can be renewed to its beautiful appearance with nothing more than high pressure water.
You can rent power washing equipment from most home improvement stores, or you can enlist the help of a Tamarac pressure washing service. It will be a little more expensive upfront, but you won’t need to deal with returning equipment or the risk of damaging your home because of lack of training or experience.
However, power washing can damage your home as quickly as it can renew it. The pressurized water can break windows, damage siding and destroy shingles. Therefore, you really have to be careful 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 heavily on where your home is and environmental factors around that location.
Most professionals will encourage having your home pressure washed once a year or, at least every 2 years.
Any pressure washing technician that tries to tell you more frequent services are needed is just trying to squeeze a little more money out of you. However, it’s your house, and if you love how it looks after a cleaning, you can power wash your home multiple times each year.
By just touching the exterior of your home, you will be able to tell if it’s time for a cleaning. The presence of dirt, mud and grime can stain your home permanently if it isn’t washed off periodically, so you might have to deviate from a set schedule if you notice too much buildup between cleanings.
Pressure washing can be harmful, but not doing it often enough will leave your home looking dirtier far more than it should. It’s necessary to note that modern building materials, particularly vinyl siding, are resistant to stains, mold and mildew. These types of materials protect your home between power washings.
Why Pressure Washing is the Preferred Method
Pressure washing is much safer than scrubbing the outside of your home because you do not need to climb up and down a ladder with a brush and a bucket while dragging a garden hose. Pressure washing can be performed from the ground in almost all residential situations.
Mold and mildew are organisms that can eat away at home exterior surfaces and eventually make their way into your home. They are not easy to get rid of, yet it is very easy for these organisms to create colonies on your home, particularly on the north side of a home where it usually doesn’t get much sunlight or wind as the other sides of your home.
Plus, power washing eliminates more dirt and grime than hand washing.
Factors that Affect Your Home’s Exterior
All of the below items can impact the appearance. All are factors that must be considered before you decide to hire a local pressure washer or think about doing the job on your own.
CLIMATE
Factors like humidity and 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 a lot of rain splashing mud onto the side of your home.
ENVIRONMENT
Pollen, pollution and mold are more of a threat in some areas of Tamarac than in others. Living in a more rural area or near 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 might be a good idea to have damaged siding replaced so the high pressure water doesn’t do any more damage. Pressure washing can also expedite a peeling paint issue.
EXTERIOR FINISH
The techniques used for pressure washing are unique to your home’s exterior (brick, siding or paint) and the area of the home. For example, for roof cleaning, a pressure washing company will use soft washing opposed to power washing to protect the shingles. Additionally, the expected results can vary widely based on technique.
When to Pressure Wash Your Home
Determining the right time to have your home pressure washed is just as important as choosing how often the service needs to be completed. There are different times during the year when power washing would be a total waste of time and money. Different times, however, a professional pressure washing service can help you in more ways than appearance.
WEATHER
Do not waste money on power washing during a rainy time of year. You’ll end up with muddy splatter and mildew at the end of the season regardless. Winter, for 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 home pressure washed while you are having different work done on your home. Rock, brick or siding might not be fastened into place during a repair like it should typically be, so you run the risk of harming the area, disrupting the other project and trapping water under building materials.
BEFORE SELLING
Pressure washing is a helpful way to increase your home’s curb appeal. It’s the simple solution 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 not one that is extremely hot. This is the optimal condition for the surfaces to dry quickly without baking cleaning chemicals onto your home’s surfaces.
If you live in a neighborhood with an home owner’s association, there might be rules about how regularly you have your home power washed or if you can do it on your own or if you have to hire a professional. You may only be under HOA guidelines concerning how your home looks, but it’s usually up to you to have it looking good.
Pressure washing is one of the fastest and most effective methods to clean your entire home. As long as it’s done correctly, it is safe for most home surfaces and can eliminate years of built up dirt and stains.