House washing and exterior house cleaning

What a house wash covers

A house wash is not one wall. It is the whole exterior, done in one go so the place comes out one colour instead of a clean front and a green back. That means:

• Every wall, whatever it is clad in, vinyl, wood, painted or brick
• Trim, corner boards and the frames around the doors
• Soffit and fascia, and the black streaks that run down under the eaves
• The shaded side that nobody looks at, which is usually the worst of it

If it is only the siding you are worried about, the green film or the streaks on one side, there is more on that on our siding cleaning page.

Soft washing, because your siding is not a driveway

The mistake people make with a rented pressure washer is treating siding like concrete. Too much pressure on vinyl or wood does two things you do not want. It forces water up behind the boards where it has no way to dry, and it chalks and streaks the surface. We use lower pressure and the right cleaner and let the product lift the growth instead of blasting at it.

What comes off

• The green algae film that sets in on north facing and tree shaded walls
• Black streaking under the eaves and around the gutters
• Cobwebs, wasp nests and the general build up in the soffit
• Road grime and salt spray on anything near a busy street
• Pollen and the yellow film that shows up every spring

Safe on the beds under the wall

Everything we use is environmentally safe and will not harm plants, grass or animals. This is not a small detail on a house wash. The garden beds, the lawn and the dog are all directly underneath the wall we are cleaning, and whatever comes off the house lands on them.

Before you paint, wash

If painting is on the list, the wash comes first and it is not optional. Paint will not hold on a surface with algae, chalk or dust on it, and no amount of good paint fixes bad prep. We do paint prep and stripping as its own job for exactly this reason.

If it is the green you are after

Most house washes here are really a siding problem. If what is bothering you is the green on the shaded wall or the black streaking under the eaves, there is more detail on what that growth actually is and why pressure makes it come back faster on our siding cleaning and soft washing page.

The deck and the fence usually go green on the same schedule as the shaded wall, so deck cleaning is easy to add while we are already set up.

What affects house washing prices in Halifax

We do not put a price on a house we have not seen, because two houses on the same street can be very different jobs. These are the things that move the number:

• Size and height. A bungalow you can reach from the ground is a quicker job than a two and a half storey with dormers.
• How long since it was last done. A season of pollen rinses off. Ten years of algae on the north wall needs product, time to work and sometimes a second pass.
• What the walls are. Vinyl in good shape is the easy case. Old wood, painted clapboard and brick all need a softer, slower approach.
• Access. Fences, steep grades, tight gaps to the next house and garden beds you do not want walked through all add time.
• What else gets done. The setup is the same whether we wash the house alone or the house, the deck and the fence, so doing them together is better value.

Send us a couple of photos of the worst side and roughly how big the place is and you will get a straight number for your house. There is more on how quotes get built in what pressure washing costs in Halifax.

Residential is HRM only, and that is on purpose

We travel the whole province for commercial and industrial work, but house washing we keep inside the Halifax Regional Municipality. Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, Sackville, Cole Harbour and the communities around them. Staying local on residential is how the work stays good and how we can actually come back if something needs a second look.