Power Washing in Springfield, VA

Everything on a Springfield drive that people call a stain wants a different treatment, and pressure is the answer to almost none.

Oil and transmission fluid have soaked into the pores. Degreaser and dwell time, sometimes twice. A fresh drip usually comes out. A patch fed under the same vehicle for ten years lightens and rarely goes.

Rust from a fertilizer spreader, a chair leg or a basketball post base is chemical. Force on it just cleans the concrete around the orange.

Hot-tire pickup, the blue-black marks where a tire sits on a sealed slab, is plasticizer pulled out of the sealer. Cleaning will not reverse it. That is a resealing conversation.

On asphalt rather than concrete the pressure comes down hard. A worn asphalt surface loses its fines under a tight tip and ends up rougher than it started.

These get added once we are on site with the hose already run, and they make the most difference per dollar.

A garage floor is a confined slab with no drain, so the water gets squeegeed and pushed out. Stored boxes come out to the drive, and anything cardboard should already be off the floor. Old oil, dust and road salt respond to degreaser and a surface cleaner, and the slab looks darker wet than dry, so the verdict comes the next morning.

Carport slabs and posts are a fixture on the fifties and sixties houses. The slab cleans like a drive. The post bases and wood skirting do not, and get low pressure and a cleaner, because soft pine at grade is what pressure destroys.

Siding here is mostly painted aluminum on the older stock and vinyl on the later houses. Both wash well and both have a catch.

Aluminum oxidizes, and the chalk is what your hand comes away white with. A detergent wash with agitation takes it off and the wall looks considerably better. It does not restore the color underneath, because the chalk is the finish breaking down rather than something sitting on it. On a badly chalked wall a wash gets you most of the way and no further.

Vinyl is easier. Low pressure, a cleaner with dwell time, washing level or downward and never angled up under the laps. Water driven behind a course has nowhere to go but the wall cavity, and that is how a cheap wash becomes a drywall repair. On the lowest courses we look for the black specks out of mulch beds, which do not all come off vinyl.

Houses within reach of the interchange and the Backlick and Franconia corridors carry a fine gray deposit on the elevations facing the road, oily enough that rain does not lift it.

Bought as cleaning rather than prep, that changes two things. The white trim and gutter faces are where it shows, so those get hand attention, and sometimes only the trim and gutters need doing. And the frequency differs: a wash holds up a year easily on the quieter streets, while a road-facing elevation shows the film back sooner, so plan on doing that side more often.

Window glass takes the same deposit and it is what people notice once the walls are clean. We rinse glass. We are not a window cleaning company, and near the interchange the difference shows.

A lot of back yards here are fenced in 1960s chain link, often with a board run added later where a neighbor wanted privacy.

Chain link is galvanized wire with algae and leaf mold packed into the mesh. It cleans fast. The caveat is that old galvanizing goes dull and washing will not make it bright again, and rust at the bottom rail and the post bases stays rust.

Board fence wants the restraint siding gets. Pressure tears the soft grain out of treated pine and the wand marks are permanent. Cleaner, dwell time, low pressure, and the gray lightens. If the boards are cupped and the tops furred, washing makes the fence cleaner, not newer.

Sheds get washed at the same time and usually should be.

Fredy Vargas prices it himself, and on a Springfield lot that means counting surfaces rather than pacing square footage: drive, apron, walk, sidewalk panels, carport, garage floor, fence line, shed, and which elevations are dirty.

We need an outside spigot and the windows shut. Cars off the drive, furniture and grills moved or pointed out, pets inside. You do not have to be home.

We are based on Trevor Place in Vienna, so Springfield sits at the outer end of our area and our next start here can run later than it would closer to the shop. Worth knowing if you are washing ahead of a listing. Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured. No job minimum. Ten percent off for veterans and for anyone 65 or over. Call 703-869-0593.