Pressure Washing & Soft Wash

The work, in detail

What pressure washing & soft wash actually means on your project.

Pressure washing done wrong is one of the fastest ways to destroy an exterior surface. We have repaired vinyl siding gouged by 4,000 PSI residential rigs operated too close, cleaned algae off fiber cement that was etched by acid-based deck strippers, and refinished decks where the previous wash blew away half the soft wood between the harder grain lines. The right-fit pressure for any residential surface is almost always lower than what most homeowners assume — and on biological growth (algae, mildew, lichen) the right answer is usually chemistry, not pressure.

We use soft-wash chemistry — typically a sodium-hypochlorite solution with surfactant — for all biological growth on roofs, siding, and shaded north walls. Soft-wash kills the actual organism rather than blasting the surface symptoms; the algae, mildew, and lichen die at the root and the surface is left clean and biologically sterile for two to four years before regrowth. We use controlled-PSI rinsing (typically 800–1,500 PSI for vinyl and fiber cement, 1,500–2,500 for concrete and brick, 800–1,200 for cedar deck surfaces) for any non-biological cleaning, and we use a rotary surface cleaner for driveways and patios because it produces a more even result than a wand at any PSI.

Most homes we wash in Central Arkansas are part of a paint-prep or stain-prep project — we wash, the surface dries for two to seven days depending on substrate, and we apply finish. Standalone wash projects (driveway-and-house wash for a real estate listing, deck cleaning for a homeowner who plans to handle their own staining, commercial storefront washing) are also a regular part of the schedule and are quoted as flat rates by surface area.

Driveway and concrete patio cleaning is the most consistently underestimated wash category. A residential driveway typically holds twenty years of accumulated tire residue, oil drips, leaf-tannin staining, and biological growth in the porosity of the concrete surface. A surface cleaner with the right detergent and the right dwell time removes 95% of this in a single visit; the visual transformation from a grey, mottled driveway to a clean, uniform concrete surface is dramatic enough that most homeowners ask why they waited so long. Annual or biannual driveway cleaning is one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost exterior maintenance tasks we recommend to Central Arkansas homeowners.

Roof soft-washing has become one of our most-requested services as homeowners learn that the black streaks on their asphalt shingles are not dirt but a specific type of algae (Gloeocapsa magma) that thrives in humid Arkansas summers and that pressure-only methods cannot properly address. Our soft-wash chemistry kills the algae at the cellular level, and the dead organism washes off in subsequent rains over the following two to four weeks. We wash the roof, identify any shingle damage that warrants a roofer's attention, and provide a written care guide for extending the result. The improvement to curb appeal is significant and the cost is a fraction of a roof replacement.