How much should I pay for pressure washing

Ok so you have received a letter from your H.O.A stating that you need to have the green algae removed from your siding. How do you go about removing it? You can do it yourself. The downside to this could be time, having to make a trip to your local box store, choosing a cleaner that will remove the algae, what if all your time, effort and money make the problem worse. The upside is you can save a little money by doing it yourself. The other option is to hire someone to clean it.

If you go this route, do you know what a decent price is to pay for this kind of service? If you google "average pricing for pressure washing" the results will reveal a wide range for your area, something like "17 cents to 50 cents a square foot". None of this really gives you any useful information. The point of this article is to give the reader an accurate overview of the pricing for pressure washing a house.

The main problem is that there really is no industry standard for this service. Anyone with $300.00 and a vehicle can start a "pressure washing business". So you could pay a teenager $50.00 to do it or call one of the many pressure washing companies in your area and pay upwards of $400.00. Will it make a difference? Most likely yes. If the person you hire shows up at your house in a dirty car with an electric pressure washer in the backseat, the odds of him/her of having any real knowledge of what they are actually doing are fairly low. The surface area of vinyl siding is a fragile material. When it is exposed to UV rays it becomes even more fragile. The surface of vinyl siding can easily be discolored by the mechanical forces of a pressure washer. Once this happens, it becomes difficult to correct.

The thing to be careful of when hiring a company are the many "upsale" tactics that can be used. Extra services for shining gutters, removing this stain or that stain are really not worth the price you will pay for them. The cleaning industry makes millions of dollars by selling products that don't work. The chemical property that removes algae is sodium hypochlorite. If you buy a gallon of premixed house wash it will contain about 3% sodium hypochlorite, the rest of it will be inert material. By contrast if you bought a gallon of Pool Essentials, it will contain 10% sodium hypochlorite. The Pool Essentials mixed with a little surfactant will be more effective at removing the algae from your vinyl siding.