Many homeowners new to power washing mistakenly think that a professional cleaner can only do a good job cleaning their home’s exterior if they use very high pressure. But that’s not the case at all. Usually when you hire a contractor, the company will use a technique called soft washing.
Soft washing streams water at a fairly low pressure rate of less than 1000 PSI, or pounds per square inch. With very high pressure washing, you risk damaging siding or even breaking windows, therefore high pressure, generally upwards of 3500 PSI, is reserved for industrial type jobs such as stripping paint off vehicles and, even then, it must be done in a controlled environment to minimize the risk of property damage or physical injury.
What to expect when your home is soft washed? Well, it a relatively simple process whereby the side of the building being cleaned is first wetted down with a liquid detergent. Professional cleaners usually have a range of products, depending on the substance being eliminated – algae, mildew, paint or dirt, for example. The product will also be environmentally safe, so plants and animals will not be harmed.
Once the detergent is applied, it is allowed to sit for a minute and then the pressure washing professional will start the rinsing process, beginning at the top of the building and working on down, saturating the surface and washing away the debris. Your home is left in a like new state, and there is no mildew – nor any damage – to be found.
All this being said, however, it is always a good idea to ask a lot of questions and make sure you know what chemical, if any, is being put on your siding. A true professional will never take offense.
Spring is coming and with it often comes the desire to clean up your building. Even if you don’t suffer the plight of winter storms, it seems to be a natural inclination to spruce everything up, perhaps to highlight the new leaves, shrubbery, flowers and other plantings that burst the world into bright color with the energy of renewed life. Whether you own a home, commercial building or kitchen, parking lot or storefront, a professional pressure washing company can give a fresh look even to an older structure.
Don’t trust just any company; make sure they are licensed, insured and experienced because pressure washing can cause damages to surfaces if done incorrectly. Let a professional pressure washing company thoroughly wash your building if there are concerns regarding mold, mildew, debris, fungus, dirt or graffiti. Additionally, if you have cedar siding and intend to spray your building for insects, an advance professional cleaning can help increase the effectiveness of that treatment. It is also beneficial to have your wooden deck pressured washed prior to staining or seal coating. Pressure washing can also help to quickly clean up patios or landscaped walkways.
Most local pressure washing companies will provide free quotes and a guarantee of your complete satisfaction. Some can even bring their own water source if necessary. In that most of this business can be seasonal, building your confidence in their reliability and service is important for their assurance of a repeat clientele base. As such, you should be able to trust your pressure washing professionals to be trained in how to address your individual cleaning needs, in order to return your home or business back into its former clean condition.
If you are contemplating any large home improvement project like remodeling, roofing, painting, or pressure washing, you will need a good contractor. A great contractor can make the job go smoothly and will make sure you are happy with the results. A bad contractor can be an endless source of headaches.
To find a good Alpharetta pressure washing contractor, start out by asking friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members if they can recommend a contractor they were happy with, or warn you away from a contractor they had a bad experience with.
Other potential sources of contractors are online ratings sites such as Angie’s list and Yahoo. Remember that anyone can post on some of these sites, so read the reviews critically. Your local home improvement warehouse will also have contractors that they can recommend.
Once you have a list of candidates, interview each contractor. Explain the job and ask if they have experience in this type of work. Ask to see proof of liability insurance and workman’s compensation insurance. Find out if they have a permanent business address and telephone number and be sure to ask for a few references from recent clients. During the interview, you should get a sense of whether this contractor is someone you can work with.
Call each of the references and ask if they were happy with the work done and if they would use the contractor again. With all of this information in hand you are ready to choose the contractor who meets your requirements.
If you have ever had your home or office exterior pressure washed, you probably know what a conventional pressure washer does to paint. Pressure washers have their place, but cleaning a painted home or office building is not one of them.
A conventional pressure washer cleans using a stream of water that has been pressurized to between 2,000psi and 5,000 psi to blast away dirt and debris. In comparison, the water coming out of a spray nozzle on a garden hose is about 50 psi. This high pressure water does the job on dirt, but also does a number on the surface being cleaned.
This is particularly true with paint. When you pressure wash a painted house or office building, any loose paint or caulk is stripped away. If you accidently get too close to the house with the pressure washer’s wand or use the wrong tip, even good paint will be stripped off. As a result, you have no choice but repaint the whole house or office building.
Low pressure washing is a much better alternative for cleaning the exterior of painted homes and buildings. Low pressure washing uses effective, biodegradable, environmentally safe chemicals to clean the dirt, mold, mildew, and other debris from the outside of your home or building without harming the existing paint. The surface is then rinsed with a high volume of low pressure water to safely clean the home or business.
With low pressure washing, all you get is clean. Unlike conventional pressure washing, there is no danger of any damage to the paint or the underlying surface. For a clean, great looking painted home or commercial building call your Cumming GA pressure washing contractor.
Vinyl siding is a popular material for the outside of homes and businesses because, unlike other types of siding, vinyl siding does not rot and never needs to be painted. All your vinyl siding needs to keep looking great is a good periodic cleaning. Dirt, mold, and mildew accumulate over time and a thorough washing will make vinyl siding look like new again. Regular washing will help prevent the dirt and mildew from permanently staining or discoloring your siding.
Many homeowners use a conventional pressure washer to clean their vinyl siding, but a pressure washers use such high pressure that they can actually cause damage to your home. These pressure washers rely on a stream of water that has been pressurized to very high pressure to remove dirt by the force of the water.
The problem with using such high pressure water is that the water can infiltrate under the siding and soak the studs and wood sheathing. Vinyl siding is made with perforations along the bottom edge that air can circulate under the siding.
When high pressure water is directed at the siding, it shoot up into the perforations and gets everything behind the siding wet. When wood framing or sheathing gets wet, it will begin to rot. In addition, mold and mildew will begin to grow behind the siding.
Low pressure washing is the better alternative for cleaning vinyl siding. Low pressure washing uses environmentally safe chemicals to clean away the dirt, mildew, and debris, followed by a thorough rinse with high volume, low pressure water. This technique gets the siding spotlessly clean while avoiding water infiltration issues.
Call an Alpharetta GA pressure washing contractor to have your vinyl siding safely cleaned with modern low pressure cleaning and it will look like new again.
A deck is not only a beautiful addition to any home, but it also provides an excellent outdoors area to entertain guests and for family relaxation. Like anything else exposed to the elements it will accumulate dirt, grime, mold and mildew. Periodic cleaning of your deck will help keep it looking great and providing enjoyment for years to come.
Many people try to use a pressure washer to clean their deck. While it is possible for an experienced pressure washer contractor to clean a deck using a pressure washer, it is much more difficult than it looks to get a deck clean without damaging it. Unfortunately, in the hands of most homeowners and even some professionals, pressure washing a deck can do as much harm as good.
A typical pressure washer uses water pressurized to between 2,000 and 5,000 psi to blast away dirt and grime. However, wooden decks are made from relatively soft woods that can be damaged very quickly by a stream of high pressure water. In the blink of an eye, a pressure washer can turn a perfectly good but dirty deck into a clean, but severely damaged deck.
The stream of high pressure water from a pressure washer can take off a quarter inch layer of wood very quickly. At best, a typical pressure washer will leave the deck surface “fuzzy” with wood fibers raised by the pressure washing process.
A better method of deck pressure washing involves cleaning it with a low pressure washer. In this method, environmentally save chemicals are applied to remove the dirt and grime, then the chemicals and dirt are removed by the application of low pressure, high volume water. The result is a clean deck with no damage.
Most people who need to clean the outside of their home, a driveway, basement or have any other large outdoor cleaning project use a pressure washer that cleans by blasting away dirt and debris by using water that has been pressurized up to 5,000 psi or more.
You can buy or rent a pressure washer and do the job yourself or hire a professional pressure washer. In either case, however, it is easy to do a lot of damage to your home or commercial building with an ordinary pressure washer. Water under very high pressure can very quickly damage siding, concrete, bricks, mortar, and stucco. It can drive water underneath siding and shingles and can damage the glazing or seals around window panes, causing the window to leak.
Inflicting damage with a pressure washer is most common with inexperienced homeowners, but even a professional can create a lot of damage before realizing it. To get good results with a pressure washer without causing damage you have use the right tip on the spray wand and use the least amount of pressure needed to get the job done.
Even then, sometimes damage is inevitable. For example, if you are washing bricks with soft mortar, the amount of pressure needed to clean the brick could severely damage the mortar.
Fortunately, there is a better way to clean large outdoor surfaces. Low pressure washing uses environmentally safe chemicals to clean the surface, followed by a large volume of low pressure water to rinse away the cleaning solution along with the dirt and debris. Low pressure washing techniques are safe for all surfaces and avoid the problems inherent with high powered pressure washers.
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