The green on your wall is alive
The film that turns a north-facing Florida wall gray-green is not road dust. It is a colony of algae
and mildew that has taken up residence in the texture of your stucco or the seams of your siding. That
matters for one practical reason: you cannot solve a living thing by hitting it harder.
A pressure washer removes the visible top layer and leaves the colony’s foothold behind, which is why
a blasted house looks clean for three months and a properly soft-washed house looks clean for a year
or more. It also leaves wand marks, drives water behind siding and up under window flashing, and on
older stucco can take the paint with it.
How a soft wash actually works
- Everything green gets a drink first. Beds, turf, hedges and anything planted along the work
path are soaked with plain water before a drop of solution goes anywhere. This is the part of the
job that separates careful operators from fast ones, and it is not optional.
- Solution goes on at low pressure. Roughly what comes out of a garden hose. It is applied from
the bottom up so it does not run down over dry wall and streak.
- It dwells. The solution needs time on the surface to break down the organic growth. Rushing
this step is why some washes come out patchy.
- Hand attention where it matters. Entry doors, light fixtures, address numbers, window frames
and anything with a corner that traps growth.
- Rinse from the top down. Including a rinse of the hardscape below the walls, so the driveway
is not left with a tide line, and a second rinse of the landscaping.
What gets included
Walls, soffit, fascia, the exterior faces of gutters, window frames, exterior doors and trim. On most
Winter Springs homes that is the whole envelope. If you have shutters, decorative stone, a screened
entry, or a covered porch you want included, say so in the quote request so it is priced rather than
assumed.
What a house wash will not fix
It is worth being blunt here, because this is where expectations usually break down.
- Chalky, oxidized paint will clean but stay dull. That is the paint film degrading. It is a
repaint, not a wash.
- Peeling or lifting paint may come off during the wash. If we see it at the walkthrough we tell
you before we start, because it is your decision whether to proceed.
- Rust bleed from irrigation, and stains that have soaked into porous stucco, need a specialty
treatment and may still not fully clear.
- Failed caulk, rotten trim and pest damage are sometimes hidden by dirt and revealed by cleaning.
We will point them out. We do not repair them.
How often, realistically
In Central Florida, most homes want this on roughly an annual cycle. The variables that shorten it are
shade, tree cover, and irrigation heads that spray the wall. A south-facing wall in full sun might go
two years. A north wall under a live oak with a sprinkler hitting it will be green again in eight
months, and no wash of any kind changes that — it is the environment, not the cleaning.
If regrowth is bothering you faster than it should, the fix is usually adjusting an irrigation head or
cutting back a branch, and we will say so rather than selling you a second wash.