.
|
Pressure Washing 101
How To Pressure Wash/Clean The Exterior of Your Home
by D. Raye Samoth
Whether your home exterior is covered with bricks, stones, hardi plank,
wood or vinyl siding, at some point it will require maintenance of some
kind. And it will also require a good cleaning at some point
as well. It really doesn't matter if your home is relatively new or
not, you can be sure that it will be ready for a good cleaning sooner
or later...and probably sooner than later.
And when that time arrive you will be faced with a choice, either to
hire a professional pressure washer/pressure cleaning contractor, or
you can think about doing it yourself. To be quite frank with you, the
price of hiring a contract cleaner to professionally wash the exterior
of your home has never been cheaper than now and with winter just
around the corner prices may continue to fall. But for the brave heart
who feels that a dollar saved...well, is a dollar saved, this
article is for you.
I'm going to walk you through a step by step guide to pressure
washing/cleaning the exterior of your home. It's really not a difficult
thing to do but you must be ever vigilant and by all means pay total
attention to what you are doing. It is definitely within most
homeowners' ability to pressure wash/clean the exterior of their home,
however, danger lurks around every corner; so you must devote complete
attention to the task you're performing.
I have been pressure washing/cleaning homes, buildings and even some
industrial plants since 1984 and I have gained some valuable knowledge
along the way and I'm going to share it with you in this article. So
come aboard and let's go.
TAKING INVENTORY OF THE EXTERIOR OF YOUR HOME
Before you begin actually pressure washing/cleaning the exterior of
your home take a few moments to walk around your home to see if there
are any missing boards, broken windows, insulation that needs
replacing, to avoid spraying water into your home. Water damage can
prove to be catastrophic even at low pressure spraying (1000-1500 psi),
not to mention pressure washers that can produce water pressure up to
3000 psi (pounds per square inch). So before you begin make sure
everything is in place and there are not any openings that could be a
passage way for water to enter into your home.
Protect all plants and green life from water damage and especially from
any chemicals that you might be using as well. Not to sound a bit
silly, but be sure that all the pets are out of harms way and in a
safe, dry and secure place until you finish the job...and of course the
kids and anyone else that might be in the vicinity. Safety is always
the most important thing when you are pressure washing the exterior of
your home. Although pressure washing your house can be a fun experience
when it is done safely and properly, but by the same token when done
unsafely and improperly, a pressure washer can become a lethal weapon
that can maim and destroy life, so please be extremely careful when
operating one.
EXTERIOR CLEANING 101
Now that everything is in order and you're ready to begin cleaning the
exterior of your house, once again, safety is the operative word and
caution is the yellow light that you should keep in your head at all
times. Okay? Alright. So let the show begin. As I stated earlier, I
have been pressure washing homes for almost a quarter of a century and
I have cleaned a lot of homes in my time, and I still thoroughly enjoy
doing so...except in winter. But hopefully that's not a problem for
you. First, remember to follow all of the directions and instructions
that the manufacturer of the pressure washer has recommended. In other
words follow their guidelines on how to operate the equipment to a
letter. Never deviate for a second from the way the equipment is
intended to be used. And for goodness sake make sure you do not sit the
fuel can remotely close to the pressure washer when it is running!
We
are an information site. We have lots of articles that we believe
to useful to our readers. We have purchased a lot of information
from writers and some we write ourselves, but nevertheless we hope that
our audiences appreciate them. You will find information about
health, cars, finance, travel, shopping, videos and much, much more.
So, please fell free to browse around it's for you. |
.
.
|
.
. |