Power Washing in McLean, VA

Here is one people rarely diagnose on their own. A horizontal band of staining across the bottom three or four feet of a wall, usually on one elevation, sometimes with matching spotting on the lower window glass.

That is the irrigation. A head that throws onto the house leaves the minerals in the water behind every time it runs, and where the line is fed from a well or through old galvanized pipe it carries iron, which stains orange. On stucco, limestone and light brick it is obvious.

Pressure does nothing to it, because it is a mineral deposit rather than dirt. It takes the right remover and some patience, and it comes straight back unless the head gets turned or adjusted. We will clean it. We will also tell you which head is doing it, because otherwise you are paying for this again next August.

The dark vertical striping on white aluminum gutters is on the outside face, not in the trough, and cleaning the gutters out does nothing about it. It is a fine film that collects where water runs over the lip and dries, and it shows up worst on a long gutter run under a deep overhang.

It does not come off with pressure at any setting you would want near a fascia. It takes a dedicated gutter cleaner and, on the stubborn sections, a brush by hand along every foot of it.

On a McLean house that frequently means three stories and a gutter line over a planting bed or a stone terrace, so it is ladder work rather than a wand from the lawn.

Front walks here are often bluestone, slate or cut stone, set in mortar, with stone or brick steps up to the door. Those are the most walked-on surfaces on the property and the ones most people want cleaned.

Mortared joints in a stone walk are the limit on pressure. Old mortar washes out of a joint quickly, and a loose stone in a front walk is worse than a dirty one. We work the faces of the stone, keep the tip off the joints, and let the cleaner handle the black film in the shaded sections.

Winter leaves its own mark. Deicing salt spalls concrete and eats mortar, and once the surface of a step has flaked, washing it clean makes the damage easier to see rather than harder. That is a repointing or a resurfacing conversation, and we say so before we start instead of after.

Plenty of our McLean washing is a once-a-year visit on a house nobody is planning to paint, and it is worth knowing what that money does beyond appearance.

Algae and mildew hold moisture against whatever they are growing on. On a painted trim board, a stucco wall or a stone terrace that means the surface spends more of the year damp than it otherwise would, and damp is what shortens the life of a coating and what softens mortar.

What it does not do is reverse age. A body color that has chalked and faded on the south and west will look cleaner and still look faded, because the pigment that has gone is gone, and we say so at the estimate.

The landscaping on these properties is frequently worth more than the washing, and it sits exactly where we have to work. Specimen boxwood tight against a foundation, beds under every window, low-voltage lighting, stone fountains, an outdoor kitchen.

Plants get soaked with clean water before any cleaner goes on a wall, which keeps them from drinking the solution, then rinsed again when we finish. Anything delicate gets covered instead, and anything you do not want touched at all we work around by hand. Light fixtures, cameras, doorbells, speakers and the low-voltage power supply get protected, and we look for the irrigation controller and the landscape lighting box before we start rather than finding them with a hose.

Fredy Vargas comes out and walks it himself. On a McLean house the questions are what every surface is, where the water goes, which windows and storms still seal, and which stains are dirt rather than mineral, rust or age. Those answers set the method and the price, and none of them can be judged from a photograph.

We are ten minutes away at 8040 Trevor Place in Vienna. Fred General Painting has been working here since 2002. Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured, four employees.

Monday to Friday 8 to 5, weekends by appointment. No job minimum, so a front walk, a terrace or one elevation is a job we will take. Veterans and anyone 65 or older take 10 percent off. Call 703-869-0593.