Power Washing

Sidewalks, entries, dumpster pads, parking structures and building exteriors. Grime, gum, salt residue and mildew gone before your customers arrive.

What it is

Everything outside a building collects a layer that rain does not take off: tire rubber and oil in the drive lanes, gum and spilled drinks on the sidewalk, grease and sour residue on the dumpster pad, mildew on the shaded north wall, and in this part of the country a winter's worth of salt that leaves a white bloom on concrete from November to April. Power washing removes it with hot water, pressure, and where needed a detergent, and it is the fastest single change you can make to how a building looks from the street.

Pressure is a tool, not the point, and the biggest mistake in this trade is using too much of it. A jet strong enough to clean a concrete sidewalk will etch a brick face, strip paint, cut a line into a wood deck and drive water behind siding. So we match the method to the surface: high pressure and hot water on concrete and asphalt; lower pressure with a wide fan on pavers and stone; and soft-wash on siding, stucco, painted surfaces and anything with mildew, where a cleaning solution does the work at garden-hose pressure and is rinsed off. Picking the wrong one is how a cleaning job becomes a repair bill.

Our crews carry hot-water units, surface cleaners (the spinning-bar attachment that leaves concrete without stripes), and water recovery where a site drains to a storm sewer that must not take wash water. Work is scheduled around your hours: a restaurant patio before the lunch crowd, a dealership lot on a Sunday morning, a school entry over a break.

Power washing is run by the same crew as our window cleaning, under the same manager. They work on the outside of your building, they carry the ladders and lifts, and they are usually on site together — so if the glass and the entry both need doing, it is one visit and one schedule rather than two.

What's included

Flatwork — concrete and asphalt

• Sidewalks, entry aprons, patios, drive-through lanes, loading docks, parking-structure decks and ramps
• Gum removal with hot water and steam; oil and rubber lifted with a degreaser before the wash
• Salt bloom and de-icer residue rinsed off in spring so it stops eating the concrete
• Surface-cleaner pass for even results, then a rinse to the drain or to recovery

Dumpster pads and enclosures

• Degreaser, hot water and a sanitizing rinse; the enclosure walls and gates done with the pad
• Monthly in food service; quarterly elsewhere — this is the job that stops the smell and the pests
• Wash water contained and disposed of properly where the pad drains to a storm inlet

Building exteriors

• Soft-wash of siding, stucco, painted block and metal panels: mildew, algae and dirt removed without pressure damage
• Brick and stone at a pressure that cleans the face without pulling the mortar
• Entry canopies, awnings, columns, signage backs and window frames — the glass itself is window cleaning
• Metal railings, bollards, benches, bike racks, trash receptacles

How often it's really needed — pick your surface

Method: hot water, high pressure, surface cleaner. Gum and grease pre-treated.

Verdict: spring and fall for most buildings; quarterly where the public eats or shops.

Method: degreaser, hot water, sanitizing rinse, contained where the drain is a storm inlet.

Verdict: if there is a smell, the interval is too long. Monthly for anything with a kitchen.

Method: soft-wash only. A cleaning solution applied at low pressure, allowed to work, rinsed at garden-hose pressure. No jet ever touches these surfaces.

Verdict: annual soft-wash on the mildew side, every couple of years elsewhere.

Method: hot water, surface cleaner on decks, sweeping first, water recovery where the deck drains to the street.

Verdict: an annual deck wash and a quarterly stairwell program. Salt is what shortens a garage's life; get it off in April.

Why the salt wash matters more than it looks

De-icing salt does not just leave a white stain. It pulls moisture into concrete, and the freeze-thaw cycle that follows is what breaks up the surface and cracks the joints. A hot-water rinse in early spring, before the summer sun bakes the residue in, is the cheapest maintenance a sidewalk or a parking deck can get. It also keeps that salt off the lobby floor, because it stops being tracked in.

What to expect

• Walkthrough. We look at every surface and decide the method for each, find the water source and the drains, check for loose paint, cracked mortar and failed caulk that pressure would make worse, and note what has to be protected: plants, signage, electrical.
• Written scope and proposal. Surface by surface with its method, a schedule (seasonal or on request), and a flat price. Water recovery and disposal are called out where the site needs them.
• The job. Scheduled outside your hours, weather permitting; we call if a freeze or a storm moves it. Areas coned off, wash water managed, and the site rinsed clean before we leave.
• Ongoing. The seasonal dates go on our calendar so the spring wash just happens; on-request work — an event, a spill, graffiti — through your account manager.