Power Washing in Herndon, VA

If the lower courses of your siding are covered in tiny black dots that will not rub off, that is artillery fungus, and it comes out of hardwood mulch beds. It grows in the decomposing mulch and fires spores a few feet onto whatever is standing there: siding, trim, the car parked nearby, the storm door.

They bond hard. Some come off with a cleaner and patience. Some do not, and anybody who tells you a wash removes every one of them has not picked many off a wall by hand.

The part that actually helps is the mulch. Shredded hardwood feeds it. Bark nugget, pine or stone in the beds against the house does not feed it nearly as well. That is a landscaping decision rather than a washing one, and it is the only thing that stops it coming back.

The black vertical streaking on a Herndon roof is algae living on the shingle, and on a house of this age the roof is often the first thing a committee letter mentions.

We do not pressure wash asphalt shingles. Pressure strips the granules that protect the shingle from ultraviolet light, and it can drive water up under a course. A roof like that wants a low-pressure soft wash with the right chemistry and a careful plan for where the runoff lands, because it lands on your plantings.

We will also be straight with you about age. If the shingles are curling, the edges are brittle, or the roof is near the end of a thirty-year run, cleaning it is money on a roof that needs replacing. Get a roofer to look at it first.

Subdivision concrete is a predictable set of stains. The slab in front of the garage door takes the oil. The public sidewalk across the front takes the green, because it is shaded and stays damp. The apron takes tire marks, and the pad where a basketball post is set takes rust.

Concrete is where higher pressure is appropriate, and it goes on with a rotating surface cleaner rather than a bare wand. The wand is why so many driveways around here are striped in arcs: no hand holds distance and overlap evenly across a whole slab.

Rust is chemistry, not pressure. The orange spray pattern thrown out by a fertilizer spreader, the ring under a metal chair leg, the stain under a hoop base, all need a rust remover. Oil needs a degreaser and dwell time.

The historic district holds 173 contributing buildings, most of them put up between 1890 and 1920, and the siding is wood that has been painted and repainted for a century.

A washer does not belong on that. Old coatings are brittle and will come off in sheets if you push them, the glazing putty in original sash has cracked and will take water in, and a narrow tip carves softened wood fiber without any effort at all. Those houses get hand washing with a bucket, a brush and a garden hose, which is slower and is the only sensible way.

Everything of that age predates 1978 by a wide margin. We sheet the ground, collect what comes off, and clean up at the end of the day rather than rinsing it into the yard.

Pollen runs from late March into May and it is why most washing calls here arrive in the same three weeks. If you wash while it is still falling, you will be looking at a yellow film again in four days. Waiting until it has finished is worth more than booking early.

The shaded side of town along Sugarland Run and the W&OD corridor holds damp longer, so growth there comes back sooner and an annual wash makes more sense than a wash every three years. We are based at 8040 Trevor Place in Vienna and Herndon is at the outer edge of what we cover, so lead times out there run longer in spring. We would rather tell you that up front.

Fredy Vargas started the company in 2002 and is on site with the crew. Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured. Monday to Friday 8 to 5, weekends by appointment. No job minimum, so a driveway and a front walk is a normal call. Veterans and anyone 65 or older take 10 percent off. Call 703-869-0593.