Think about it: most people wash their cars at least once a month, but how should you go about washing your house? The garden hose and a bucket of soap just aren’t going to cut it. The first step to keeping a house clean and looking great is washing the exterior. Neglecting this critical task not only makes a house look dingy and drab but can cause long-term damage to the exterior surface and other expensive repair issues.
Most homeowners prefer to choose professional exterior cleaning services or soft washing since it provides many benefits, makes your home look great, and extends its lifespan, too. However, it can be confusing to determine if pressure or soft washing is the better choice because they’re two different processes.
Choose Professional Eco-Friendly Soft Washing and Power Washing
While some homeowners may choose to try a DIY approach, it can be difficult and expensive to buy the products necessary, whether choosing soft or pressure washing. Generally, most prefer to leave it to the professionals, which is a more cost-effective approach and allows the experts to make your home look shiny and clean, boosting curb appeal and making you feel proud every time you look at your home.
In Florida, the leading choice for exterior and roof cleaning is A+ SoftWash. They specialize in professional pressure washing and soft washing using green cleaning products for residential and commercial properties. It’s imperative to use eco-friendly cleaning products, as harsh methods and chemicals can cause irreparable damage to the surrounding environment and animal life.
Pressure Washing
Pressure washing is one of the most effective solutions for blasting away built-up grime, dirt, mold, mildew, and algae. Pressure washing is similar to power washing, but power washers are typically heavier machines that are better suited to industrial applications, and they use hot water.
Pressure washers don’t use hot water, but they’re still incredibly dangerous. Many people may not know this, but pressure washers push out water at such a high rate that they can quite literally cut a finger to the bone in just a split second. That’s why it’s crucial to leave this to the professionals because it can be dangerous for homeowners with no experience.
Since it’s so powerful, pressure washing must be completed by a competent professional. They must be extra careful around vulnerable areas like siding, roofing, gutters, and it needs to be completed at the correct distance. It’s also ideal for stone walkways, concrete, decks, walking surfaces, or anything with texture or grooves where dirt can build up.
Benefits of Pressure Washing
Pressure washing provides many benefits for the average homeowner, including the most obvious use of keeping a house clean and looking great. However, it also has better benefits, including:
Removes Toxic Mold and Mildew
Depending on the region of the country you live in, and the type of vegetation surrounding your home, mold, mildew, and algae can be a huge problem. Not only does it leave an ugly black or green scum on the exterior surface, but it can easily damage the siding.
Mold and mildew are also extremely dangerous to the average person and even more so to those with breathing or lung issues like asthma. However, pressure washing blasts away mildew and mold, preventing them from covering the exterior of your home.
Extends its Lifespan
Scheduling twice-yearly professional power washing is proactive maintenance that can help extend the lifespan of your home. Keeping dirt and grime from accumulating can prevent long-term deterioration and damage from ruining the exterior surface. Wooden siding, in particular, such as clapboard or shingles, can rot if it’s not regularly cleaned to remove mold and mildew.
Soft Washing
Soft washing is similar to pressure washing, but it’s completed at a much lower PSI, typically about 500 or lower. Instead, it relies on a much larger volume of water being pushed through the hose and cleaning products, too.
Green cleaning products do an excellent job of loosening and breaking down built-up dirt and grime, allowing it to be easily rinsed and washed away to keep the exterior surface clean and free of dirt. Another great part of choosing professional soft washing is that it has a much lower risk of causing damage since the water being used is low pressure.
Benefits of Soft Washing
While soft washing provides many of the same benefits as pressure washing, it also has some unique advantages if you compare the two methods to each other. Here are some of the benefits that come from soft washing, including:
Saves Money
Both pressure washing and soft washing can provide this benefit: saving money. By keeping a house clean and carrying out regular maintenance by professional pressure or soft washing, a house lasts longer. It also helps avoid costly repairs, like replacing mold-rotted clapboards or shingles. It also makes any home look fantastic, boosting its overall value.
If you are looking to purchase your own soft washing machine, the Pure20 Reach & Wash System is one of several Cost Effective Soft Washing Systems.
Lower Risk of Damage
Since soft washing doesn’t use extremely high-pressure water to clean the exterior of a building, there’s a much lower chance of damage occurring. The larger volume of water makes up for the lower pressure, and the added cleaning products work extra hard to loosen up dirt so it can be rinsed right off with water.
Kills Mold and Bacteria
One great benefit of soft washing is that it doesn’t just eliminate and remove mold, mildew, algae, and bacteria; it actually kills it to prevent further growth. Pressure washing doesn’t have this benefit because it doesn’t use cleaning products. However, soft washing gets rid of the problem at the source instead of just washing it away. Think of it like laser hair removal compared to shaving soft washing requires less regular maintenance.
Gets Rid of Pests
If you’ve ever noticed a multitude of insects near the windows when the warmer months roll around, they’re most likely hibernating under the siding. Soft washing helps rid insects, eggs, cocoons, and other pests from overwintering underneath the protection of the siding or shingles. That way, it stays clean and discourages insects and rodents of all kinds from being attracted.
Choose Professional Pressure or Soft Washing
Keeping the exterior of a house clean is something that too many homeowner’s neglect. Unfortunately, failing to do this crucial task is more than just an aesthetic issue it can cause significant damage to the exterior of a home, including rot, mold, mildew, and general deterioration. However, regular professional pressure and soft washing is the perfect solution. They both provide effective and superior quality cleaning performance and provide a multitude of benefits besides adding curb appeal.
When soft washing, it’s also important to use green cleaning products as an environmentally friendly consideration. However, improper pressure and soft washing equipment are tremendously dangerous in the hands of somebody inexperienced, which is why it’s vital to leave this job to a professional. Regularly scheduled professional pressure washing or soft washing will leave your home looking beautiful and make you feel proud every time you pull in the driveway.
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I like how you said that professional pressure washing helps to prevent health issues by removing mold or mildew from your house. My brother’s house has some mildew growth around parts of the siding. I’ll recommend that he hire professionals to pressure wash his house this weekend and keep his family healthy.
It was informative when you talked about how soft washing can be used to prevent the growth of algae, bacteria, mildew, and mold. It seems like you would want to have your home soft-washed during the springtime because this is when molds really start to grow. Keeping these harmful organisms off the exterior of your home can help you keep your family healthy.
I like that you mentioned that when power washing your home yourself the products can be expensive and difficult to find. My wife and I are selling our home and so we want to clean the outside before putting it on the market. I think we will hire a power washing company to come to clean our siding!