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4 Ways to Use a Power Washer Around Your Home

Sep 26, 2014

A power washer is a powerful, yet largely misunderstood tool. It sprays water at high pressure, but this doesn’t grant it magical cleaning powers. Pressured water alone will blast off heavy soil, but it won’t “wash” your siding, car or driveway. As a Maryland power washing company, we know that for many applications, a cleaning detergent is necessary to loosen up dirt before it can be removed by water pressure. With the right tools and approach, power washing can be successfully used to clean many outdoor surfaces.

Wash Your Driveway

Power washing works great on concrete surfaces, as well as asphalt, so it’s perfect for driveways and concrete patios. Our driveways get a lot of use and stain easily from dripping car liquids, dirt, algae and fungus. If you are not the first owner of your home, you might have never seen what your driveway originally looked like. Concrete is porous, and after years of use dirt gets lodged in the pores and crevices, creating a dark greyish surface. Your driveway is actually clean under there—you just need to use a power washer to uncover it. The same is true for your soiled garage floor.

Clean Your Deck

Your deck may need cleaning every once in a while. From leaves and twigs to grass clippings and mold, a deck can be quite a dirt magnet. A power washer can be used to clean most decks, especially vinyl and composite decking. However, be careful using it on a wooden deck, because it may strip some of the finish. In fact, if the deck finish is already flaking off, the pressured water might help take it off to prepare your deck for refinishing. If you are pressure-washing your wooden deck, consider sealing it afterward to protect the newly exposed surface.

Keep Your Siding the Right Color

Depending on what kind of siding your home has, it might be more or less susceptible to mold. Mold comes in many colors, but more often than not it covers your siding with a greenish tint. You can certainly hand-wash some of the areas with bleach, but scrubbing your entire home’s exterior is unrealistic. For hard-to-reach areas and faster turnaround, use power washing to restore your siding to its original color. Steel, vinyl and wood siding can all benefit from a power wash, especially if you are prepping these surfaces for a fresh coat of paint. Besides your home, you can power wash siding on your garage, shed, doghouse and other outdoor structures.

Clean Your Grill

Have you ever read a manual for your grill? The chances are good, it has a few paragraphs about how you should take apart and clean your grill after each use. Does anyone actually do it? While we might be OK without such frequent cleaning, you shouldn’t let your grill sit dirty for too long. You’ll be amazed how much food debris and baked-on gunk comes out after a thorough cleaning. Use a degreaser and a power washer combo to blast every last piece of burned chicken off those racks. Similar to the grill, power washing can be used to clean farm and lawn mowing equipment by removing dirt and grass clippings.

Call a Professional!

Power washing is not as easy as it looks. First, you need to either buy, rent or borrow a power washer. While they are not very expensive, it might not be practical to buy a piece of equipment if you only need it for one job. Besides the machine itself, you might need extra nozzles, detergents and attachments compatible with your power washer. For example, to clean siding on a two-story home, an extension attachment is necessary to reach the top of the building. Never use a ladder while power washing. And to achieve the desired results, you might have to switch between a few different nozzles designed for different applications.

On top of that, you have to know what you are doing when using a power washer. These machines serve water at an extremely high pressure that can damage the surfaces you are treating, as well as cause injuries if used incorrectly.

Need help keeping the outside of your home clean? Kent Clean offers power washing services in Maryland. Let us know which surface you want to power wash and we’ll be happy to provide a professional crew that can do it quickly and efficiently.

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