Power Washing in Germantown Tennessee

When it comes to cleaning the exterior of your home, few tools offer as much as a well-utilized power washer. Combining the intensity of traditional pressure washer treatments with the grime-cutting potential of hot water, a power washer in the hands of a trained professional can renew every inch of your home’s exterior made of resilient materials.

Why power wash your home?

Bringing out a power washing service to treat your home may not seem immediately worthwhile, but when you consider the value of effectively cleaning your home’s exterior, it quickly becomes clear why you may wish to.

Aesthetics. Treatment with a power washer can renew many materials, cleaning out years of accumulated grime in a single treatment. It can be one of the only ways to remove many forms of degradation and dirt from hard to reach places, scrub out deep-set stains in porous materials, or efficiently clear away an eroded surface to reveal the fresh material beneath.

Your health. Frequent power washing can have a serious impact on the health of your home’s occupants by eliminating many common sources of illness and ailment. Allergens, molds and mildews, spilled chemicals, and similar substances tend to accumulate on the exterior of your home when you leave it uncleaned, which in turn greatly increase your exposure to those substances in or around your home. To a lesser extent, molds can encourage pests to take up residence in your walls and external structures, further increasing your exposure to harmful elements.

Home health. The same molds, mildews, and corrosive elements that make you and your family unhealthy over time can contribute to the degradation of your home, too. Mold in your siding can quickly turn into mold in the side of your home, changing rapidly from a minor annoyance to a major repair project. Similarly, leaving corrosive chemicals on your sidewalk, deck, or driveway can lead to the rapid degradation of a structure you could have expected to last decades with only minimal attention.

Safety. Algae and mildew on your decks, thick layers of grime on your sidewalks or driveway, these are the sorts of messes which don’t just make your home look worse, they make it unsafe to navigate. A slip and fall on a poorly cleaned sidewalk can lead to serious injury for you, your family, or your visitors.

What can be power washed?

Many of the exterior surfaces of your home can be safely cleaned with a power washer, allowing for exceptions based on different materials. For those that can’t tolerated the full power of a pressure-washer, a power washer offers improved cleaning potential at lower pressures thanks to the added heat.

External structures. Pressure and power washers are the preferred tool for cleaning most decks, sheds, carports, etc., whether they’re made of hardwoods, composite materials, aluminum, or other common building materials.

Siding. Many forms of siding can be safely and effectively power-washed, cutting through grime to reveal the pristine form of the siding beneath.

Roof. Some roofs can be pressure washed, but in many cases,  you risk damaging not only the protective sheathing of your roof, but the underlying deck. Some types of roof can never be safely washed with a power washer or pressure washer, while others are fine if they’re in good condition.

Sidewalks. Most sidewalks and walkways made of concrete, hardwood, stone, and other common footpath materials can be safely and effectively renewed via power washing, though stone footpaths set in soil can be difficult to clean without kicking up mud and debris.

Driveway. Driveways get filthy quickly, and often with hard-to-clean, deep-set stains of oil, grease, and other chemicals. Treatment with a power washer not only takes out the grime, but it can also extend the lifespan of your driveway by clearing out the chemicals etching away at it over time.

Of course, these aren’t the only structures and locations you can pressure wash. Outdoor play equipment like jungle gyms and slides are often good candidates for the tool, as are certain forms of home maintenance equipment, farm equipment, etc.

You probably don’t want to pressure, or power wash your car or similar machines, however—it usually works fine, but there’s always a risk of serious damage to certain paint types, delicate components, etc.

If you’re not sure a power washer can clean what you need cleaned, and you’re local to Cordova TN or the greater Memphis area, don’t be afraid to call us at Riggins Painting to ask if it would be safe.

When should you get power washing services?

It’s easy to put off home maintenance services like pressure washing but making a plan and sticking to it will keep your home looking better, feeling better, and lasting longer. Consider scheduling services:

Now. If you haven’t had your home, deck, sidewalks, etc. power washed any time recently—or ever—then it’s probably a good time to have it done for the first time. Of course, treating your home in the coldest weeks of winter may not be advisable, depending on the surface you’re cleaning, but any other time is a great time to schedule an appointment.

Annually or seasonally. Once you’ve started having your home cleaned with a power cleaner, you’ll want to keep up with it to maintain all the benefits. Depending on the environment of your home, how much you use your deck, the frequency of traffic, leaks, and spills on your sidewalk and driveway, and other factors, you may need visits as often as every few months or as infrequently as once per year.

When you notice something. A visit from one of your local power washing companies may also be a good choice for a quick, thorough cleaning of a mess or problem that springs up unexpectedly; a spill of something corrosive or permanently staining on your driveway, accumulated filth after bad weather or a party, etc.

Choosing a power washing company

Once you decide it’s time to hire power washing services, what comes next? Figuring out the perfect company for the job. Here are the factors you’ll want to look for:

Tools. Effective, efficient, safe power washing requires tackling the task with top notch equipment. A team using a consumer grade power washer isn’t someone you want to hire to power wash a variety of structures on or around your home, unless you don’t mind unexpected damage and/or ineffective rinsing.

Experience. Getting the best results from a power washer takes a lot of experience with the tool, which means you want a company with a proven track record with power or pressure washing. For unusual requests, this is even more important—it takes a lot of experience to make educated assessments of how to clean an unfamiliar target.

Professionalism. Prompt, clear communication, fair pricing, and adherence to a schedule is important when hiring any service provider. If a company can’t offer professionalism, do you trust it to handle powerful machinery around your home?

If you’re in the Cordova TN area, or any other town or city near Memphis, you can contact Riggins Painting today to ask about our power washer services and other home care we offer.