Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Steer Clear Of Pressure Washing Your Home

Most people pressure wash their houses, but few realize that the way it’s usually done is actually damaging to the home. You may be just going with the crowd, but in this case the crowd is wrong and you could be causing big damage to your house without realizing it.

Listed below are the top 6 reasons why you should steer clear of pressure washing your home.

Water in the walls:

This is perhaps the worst type of damage you will cause to your house with pressure washing. Some pressure washers thrust water at 1500 psi which is not too damaging, but water pressure of 3300 psi can blast right through asphalt, solid wood, and even concrete if they are close enough. 

If your home has any sort of wood exterior or siding, there’s a very high possibility that high pressure washing will send water up under the siding, probably drenching wall cavities, flooring, plaster, wiring, insulation, etc. Once the water leak into the wall, it’ll be pretty tough for it to evaporate. 

It’s also feasible to end up with crumbling plaster, mouldy insulation, and cupped flooring all from a pressure washer’s work. 

Missing mortar:

People who have brick houses generally think they can pressure wash their home. Sadly, this is far from reality. High-pressure water can easily blast away older bricks and mortar than the newer stuff available today. 

Pressure washing can blast away mortar, and repointing a brick house costs 10 times as much as washing your house.

Lead Paint:

Lead paint can be a big problem for older homes. You don't want to remove it with high pressure water because that will send lead chips all around the yard and into the soil, where your kids might ingest them.

It can damage the render of your building:

The high-water pressures can damage the texture of your render or paint by causing cracks in the skin and then penetrating behind the skin. This will cause a much more expensive problem to fix.

It leaves you with patches:

It's easy to leave streaks or patches if you don't maintain a consistent distance from the surface when cleaning your house with a pressure washer. 

It only leaves surfaces looking clean:

Pressure washing doesn't actually clean or kill organic spores; it only removes stains. To keep mold from growing back, you need to use a cleaner that targets the root cause of the problem. This can be done with a soft-washing product, applied with a brush and allowed to sit before rinsing.

Why soft wash your home?