Maintaining an excellent curb appeal is essential for both residential and commercial properties. For this reason, many home and company owners in the United States are said to prefer pressure or power washing their exteriors once in a while. This way, the outer part of their building can match the clean and well-kept indoors.
Is Pressure Washing Exteriors Necessary
Besides boosting a property’s curb appeal, power cleaning also helps to protect a home’s or company’s exterior.
Algae, mildew, mold, and dust often build up over time. If they’re not eliminated, they could cause property deterioration. Regular pressure washing helps prevent this. At the same time, it also saves a building owner some money on the cost of exterior repairs in the long run.
Besides that, power cleaning also helps one maintain a healthy family and workforce. This is because irritants like dust and mold can trigger asthma symptoms when inhaled.
Moreover, a great-looking exterior could also raise the value and image of a home or business. This is vital, especially if you’re looking to sell your house or have investors coming to your company.
Issues You Might Encounter While Power Washing
As mentioned above, there are several benefits of power cleaning a building’s exterior.
Hiring a professional like a pressure washing company in Jacksonville, FL and nearby areas, may be best if you’re looking to do so. If you have the expertise to do the job, a do-it-yourself (DIY) cleaning might help you save some cash on the cost of hiring a professional. But if you don’t have the skills and experience, you might not do an efficient job. Instead, you might encounter issues like:
- Damaged Surfaces
As a novice, one of the problems you might face after power washing your building is seeing damaged walls, roof sections, or other surfaces. This could happen for various reasons. Some of them are listed below:
- Using Excess Pressure
Using too much pressure when power cleaning a building could splinter wood, remove deck finish, or leave holes on vinyl. Plus, it could take granules off an asphalt roof. It may be best to lower the pressure of the power washing machine to avoid such issues.
- Using Hot Water
Professionals might use hot water when pressure cleaning because it washes quickly and effectively. Nonetheless, they might only do so on commercial exteriors or larger surfaces.
Hot water could damage your shingles or vinyl siding if you’re washing your home or a smaller area. In this case, avoid power cleaning with heated aqua.
- Pressure Washing Painted Surfaces
Power cleaning old paint that has endured too much sunlight could make it come off. In some instances, even the gentlest pressure could also be excessive for some aged surfaces.
In some instances, power washing could also remove paint that’s not too old. Therefore, it might to advisable to generally avoid pressure cleaning any painted surfaces. If you’d like to do so, call a professional to do the job for you.
- Power Washer Machine Issues
You might also experience some concerns with the pressure cleaner. These might be engine, leakage, seal, or pump problems. You could encounter such issues if the machine you’re using isn’t powerful enough, it needs some repairs, or you have no experience using it.
DIYers have two options when it comes to pressure washing. They’ve got to choose between purchasing or hiring power cleaners. These are also some choices to consider if you intend to do the pressure washing yourself.
If you pick the former, ensure you read the machine’s manual before putting it to work. If you go for the other option, ask the owner for directions on utilizing it. Also, inquire about some troubleshooting instructions that may be helpful.
- Remnant Surface Stains
Another challenge you might encounter is seeing unclean spots after finishing the power washing job. This could happen if you clean in the wrong sequence. Usually, it’s best to start upwards and then head downwards.
This means you should start with the roof. After that, you can proceed to the walls and windows. Once those are done, you can now power clean the driveway, parking lot, and sidewalks. If you start downwards, the runoff from the roof will make the other surfaces below unpleasant again.
- Damaged Outdoor Greenery
There may be a chance that you can spot some plants surrounding your building that have been damaged or are dead after a power washing session. This might’ve happened because some chemicals used to pressure clean may not be friendly to plants.
You could prevent such incidences by first watering the plants before you start power washing your building. When done, rinse them to remove any chemicals on them. Alternatively, cover your plants. A plastic sheet might be helpful.
Nevertheless, ensure you don’t leave them enclosed for long, as that would cut their air supply, killing them. Instead, only cover the plants near the section you’re washing. After that, move the sheet to the others around the area you’re cleaning next.
Conclusion
Power washing your residential or commercial building can be beneficial in many ways like allowing prep work for a paint job. But it might not be a good idea to do this job if you don’t have the expertise.
Some of the issues you may experience as a novice may be pressure washing machine problems and unclean or damaged surfaces. Besides that, you could also harm or kill the plants around your house. You could avoid all these issues by hiring a professional. They’ll do the job quickly and more efficiently, causing minimal or zero damage.
