Should You Go With Power Wash or A Soft Wash Solution

A well maintained, clean home will help with longevity. It may even help avoid a break in, as criminals may not target your home if it’s continually being worked on, and cleaned up. Cleaning the exterior is a difficult thing to do if you don’t work with a soft wash or a power wash solution. The exterior of your home should get taken care of so that the curb appeal stands out. Even if you’re not planning on selling your home, it’s important to consider this solution moving forward.

Two Types of Washing

There are two major types of washing to consider. There is the soft wash and the power wash. These two refer to how water is streamed, and how heavy the pressure utilized will be. Whether you’re working on a deck or you’re working on drywall, stucco, or even vinyl siding, these options will come to mind. Which works best for your needs requires a bit of focus.

Focusing on Soft Washing 

The first type of solution is often utilized for roofing, and siding that is lightweight. This option uses pressurized water, but mixed with a detergent. The PSI is scaled down a great deal to ensure that the exterior is cleaned easily. Debris washed away from roofing, and foundation elements is important. Soft washing isn’t going to cause damage, at all. It’s mainly meant to help lift dirt, and caked on mud. It can help with sensitive areas across the exterior as well.

Power Washing Solutions

In contrast to soft washing, consider power washing solutions. Power washing is as it sounds, it uses higher levels of PSI to hit walls, roofing and more. The power of the washer here is going to cause damage to lighter surfaces, and can peel off paint and more. It’s imperative to understand that this is going to be heavy duty, and meant for homes that haven’t been cleaned often. This helps for decks, and more.

Which Is Better? 

Here’s the thing, these are both good ideas. However, you should focus on soft washing if you have recently power washed, or you want to work with a lighter touch. Power washers can be great for concrete, and solid exteriors that are tough to clean. Which is better is truly up to your needs. Ask a professional about which they recommend, and how they will work on elements overall. This will help you get the right job, which will be “better” in terms of power and soft washing solutions.

Power Washing Tips You Should Know

When it comes to cleaning exteriors, you’re going to want to invest in power washing from time to time. This is a process that allows high pressured sprays of water to clear out dirt, grime, and more. There are a few things that you should know about this, however, as it’s not as simple as connecting the garden house and an attachment. There’s a bit of finesse that comes with getting this done right, and in some instances, you’ll need to hire a professional to get this done correctly.

Safety First

First and foremost, it’s advised that you wear goggles to protect your eyes from the flying debris. You’ll find that it’s easy to have debris hit your eyes, as the pressurized water streams can in fact cause elements to fly off. It’s foolish not to have these on, even if you’ve worked with this option before. Don’t risk it, just a small speck could permanently damage your eyes.

Know What You’re Cleaning

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that this can clean everything and anything, it doesn’t work that way. You’ll find that there are some things that this is not going to clean. However, there are a wide variety of things that it can clean. For instance, vinyl, concrete, asphalt, siding, stucco, and many other options can be cleared out with this solution. However, if you try using this and you don’t see changes, you shouldn’t force it.

Cold Or Hot? 

Some people prefer hot power washing and others will recommend cold. You’ll want to look into what you’re cleaning, as mentioned above. You’ll want to go with cold for simple things like a deck, or a driveway. But if you’re going to clean oil, or mold, you’ll need to go with hot water to help clear things up a bit.

Detergent Washing

When you find yourself not getting traction with the cleaning solution here, consider adding detergents. You’ll find that there are some specific detergents that you can use for car washing, vinyl siding, and more. This can help get a little bit more power out of the streams, just be careful with the ratio of water to detergent you utilize, it’s easy to put in too much.

At the end of the day, the above tips are just the starting point. There’s a lot more to explore when it comes to power washing. You don’t need to buy a washer, you can rent one and see if it’s right for your cleaning needs, so keep that in mind.

Orange County Pressure Washing Experts