Let Your Home Sparkle This Summer With Professional Power Washing

Springtime is all about spring cleaning and getting your home looking its best. If your home is looking faded, your driveway is stained, or your roof has spots and streaks, your home is not looking its best. You could go after each of these problems individually, with a lot of time and hard labor, or you could do it all at once with a power washer. A power washer has the force to blast away dirt and grime in no time. So if you're ready for your home to sparkle this summer, you need professional power washing.

The Benefits of Power Washing

Power washing has many benefits. It makes your home look better, for sure, but it is also a crucial part of home maintenance. Every home could use a proper power washing from time to time, and here's why.

Prevent Damage to Your Home

Dirt and grime that build up on your home are more than just an eyesore. A lot of that dirty-looking stuff is actually alive. Over time, as your home is exposed to the elements, it can start to grow mold, mildew, and even moss. Roofs are especially prone to moss, while stucco, concrete, and siding provide a perfect surface for mold and mildew. Corners, crevices, and the underside of roofs and cladding provide the shade that these organisms love.

The problem with all of these living stains is that they actually feed on the surfaces they live on. Mold can eat away at the paint on your siding. Mildew can permanently damage your stucco. And while moss won't directly damage your roof, it can trap moisture that will destroy your shingles.

The best way to keep these stains from permanently damaging your home is to remove them at least once a year. Of course, you could go over your whole home with a hard-bristled brush and some cleaning solution. But that could take days, not to mention the labor involved. Instead, power washing is a quick and effective way to remove mold, mildew, and moss from your home.

Save Money on Maintenance

If you let mold, mildew, moss, and even dirt stains build up, you may find yourself facing some significant repairs. Keeping your roof, siding, and other parts of your home clean is the best way to prevent premature damage. It may look like your home needs new siding, a new roof, or a fresh coat of paint. You may look at your driveway and conclude that the only hope is to pour new concrete. But if you power wash your home, you may find that you need none of those. So if you want to save money on maintenance, start with a good power washing before you take on more expensive projects.

Prep Surfaces for Painting

Even with a good power washing, your home's paint will eventually fade and peel. No paint job lasts forever. So when it's time to paint your home, the first step is to completely clean the exterior of your home. You should never paint over stains or grime. If your siding or walls are dirty, the new paint won't stick properly and will start to bubble and peel long before it should. The best way to clean and prep your home's exterior for painting is with a thorough power washing.

Protect Your Family's Health

The mold and mildew that live on your home's exterior aren't just a danger to your home's structure. They are also a danger to your family's health. Mold and mildew release spores that can make your family sick. Here in the Southeast, our springs come with loads of pollen, which can lead to some severe allergies. But if your family is suffering from allergies, your home could also be contributing to their symptoms. Getting the mold and mildew off of your home removes one more source of seasonal allergies, helping your family breathe easier all summer long.

Save Time and Elbow Grease

Power washing just doesn't compare to any other way you could clean your home's exterior. If you went after the stains on your home's exterior or your driveway with a power washer, you would be left scrubbing them by hand. You could spend days scrubbing your home with a brush and cleaning solution, and you still wouldn't get the results that you can get from a power washer in just a few hours. It's like the difference between washing your floors with a toothbrush or a mop. There's just no comparison.

Instantly Boost Your Curb Appeal

Your home looks better when it's clean. If you feel like your home is looking a little worn down, you may be seeing the effects of dirt and grime. It's incredible how much some mildew on the walls, oil in the driveway, and moss on the roof can age a house. So before you begin planning expensive renovations, give your home a thorough power washing. You'll be astonished by the difference when your home, driveway, and roof are sparkling clean. Your home will look like new, and your curb appeal will get an instant boost.

Why You Should Hire a Professional Power Washing Service

There are some projects that really lend themself to doing it yourself. Painting an interior room, fixing a door hinge, even replacing the hardware on your kitchen cabinets and drawers are all great projects to do yourself. But when it comes to power washing, think again. It may seem like no big deal to rent a power washer for a day and blast away the grime. But the truth is that there's a lot more to power washing than you might imagine. Here's why it's best to hire the pros.

Improved Personal Safety

A power washer is not a garden hose. The same power that works to blast away stuck-on dirt and grime could easily peel your skin right off. One slip of the hand and you could cause some serious damage.

If you plan to power wash your own home, you will need to get to some hard to reach spots, which means climbing a ladder. Any time you get a ladder involved in a DIY project, you increase your risk. In this case, climbing a ladder and then wielding a high-powered washer increases your risk tremendously. Most DIYers don't realize just how much power a power washer really has. Trying to hold onto a ladder and handle a power washer at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

Protect Your Property

Even if you don't injure yourself, there are plenty of ways a DIY power washing can go wrong. When you power wash your home's exterior, you need to work around a lot of obstacles. If you accidentally blast a sensitive part of your home, like windows, screens, or even outdoor plants, you can easily cause significant damage.

One of the most critical safety concerns when using a power washer is using the right amount of pressure, the appropriate heat level, and the correct nozzle. When you combine these three factors, there are dozens of combinations. Selecting the right combination for your job is more complicated than a simple online search. Every surface and every stain requires a different combination. Cleaning oil stains off your concrete driveway is very different than cleaning dirt off of vinyl siding. In some cases, like with wood siding, you may want a much softer stream. Too much pressure could damage the surface and peel paint. Misjudging the intensity for your power washer could cause damage that is expensive to repair.

Professionals Have the Tools and Experience

You could head down to your local home improvement store and rent a power washer for the day. But will you know which power washer to choose? Your local store will likely carry a variety of power washers, each with its own rental fee. An online tutorial just isn't sufficient to ensure you make the right choice. And choosing your equipment is just the beginning

Every job is slightly different, and professionals have the experience to know how much heat and pressure to use on every surface and stain. Some tough stains may require additional cleaning solutions, while some sensitive areas may need a more gentle touch. An online tutorial can give you some guidelines, but that's no replacement for years of experience.

Professionals also use professional-quality equipment. There is nothing you can rent that will have the power and the variety of options available with professional power washers. So not only does a power washing professional have the experience to choose the right settings, but they also have the equipment to put their experience into action.

You're Covered In Case of Injuries or Damage

When you hire a properly licensed and insured power washing service, you are covered in case something goes wrong. The chances of damage to a person or property are slim, but if it happens, you won't be responsible. A licensed and insured power washing service carries insurance in case a worker is injured on the job. And if they damage part of your property, they have additional insurance to cover the damage and make you whole. So you might think you are saving money by doing it yourself, but just one damaged window, and you could end up canceling out any savings you may have made.

Save Time and Energy

If you've watched an online video about DIY power washer, it may look easy. Point, spray, and watch the dirt vanish. However, power washing is a lot of work. Handling a power washer takes some effort. And lugging a power washer around your home and going over every square inch of your home's exterior can be exhausting. Also, the time you spend doing it yourself is a lot longer than the time it takes a pro. It's just a matter of experience. Expect to spend all day on a DIY cleaning job. That's a lot of labor. When you hire the pros, they work much more efficiently, and you are paying them to do the hard work. So unless you're looking for a way to spend all weekend doing hard labor, you should seriously consider hiring a professional power washing service.

Where to Find a Reliable Power Washing Company

Although you can save a lot of time and energy hiring a power washing service, you need to be careful who you hire. You can benefit from the experience and expertise of professionals, and their licensing and insurance can keep you safe. But that's only if you get a reliable company. Unfortunately, power washing is not tightly regulated, and anyone could potentially purchase a power washer and start advertising themselves as a professional.

So how do you know who to trust? You could spend hours and even days researching multiple power washing companies, looking up reviews, calling references, and reviewing licenses and insurance. Or you could leave that up to TrustDALE. At TrustDALE, we do the work for you. Every TrustDALE certified business goes through Dale's thorough 7-point investigation. So when you hire a TrustDALE certified power washing service, you can be sure you are getting only the best. Plus, every TrustDALE certified business is covered by Dale's trademark $10,000 Make-It-Right™ Guarantee.