Washing the front of your home does more than just increase your curb appeal. It can also help protect your window sills, door frames, siding, and more from deterioration caused by mold, mildew, and other environmental hazards.
Experts recommend washing the exterior of your home every 12 to 18 months. Before you can start scrubbing–or better yet, hire a team of professionals to wash your home until it shines–you need to decide; soft washing vs pressure washing.
While each method offers its own benefits, it’s likely that one option stands out as a better choice for your home. Keep reading to learn what you need to know to make the right choice.
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Soft Washing vs Pressure Washing
Both soft washing and pressure washing can help you keep your home’s exterior looking great. However, the two methods are not interchangeable. Instead, each has a specific purpose, and using them the wrong way can lead to costly damage.
What is Pressure Washing
Pressure washing is a cleaning method that utilizes a machine to push a stream of water out at an extremely high level of pressure. In fact, a pressure washer is so strong that the stream of water can actually rip through your skin straight to the bone or bore a hole through the wood in a matter of seconds.
For that reason, you should never handle a pressure washer without experience and extreme care.
Because pressure washers create over 1,300 pounds of pressure per square inch, they are too strong to use on your home’s exterior. Doing so can rip paint from your siding or even dislodge your siding. It can also damage doors, break windows, dent gutters, and splinter window sills.
Pressure washers can be used to clean your driveway, sidewalks, patio, and even heavy-duty patio furniture.
What is Soft Washing?
As the name suggests, soft washing is much more gentle than pressure washing. However, you might be surprised to learn that pressure washers are used to soft wash homes.
The machines are set to push waster at a much lower rate of pressure per square inch, usually lower than 500 PSI.
Besides utilizing a stream of water, soft washing also involves special cleaning solutions that are designed to break down any dirt, mold, fungus, or debris that is on the outside of your home.
Soft washing can be used to clean a variety of surfaces on the outside of your home. This includes cedar shake, wood, or vinyl siding. You can also soft wash any wooden patio furniture or outdoor decorations.
While this method is gentler than a pressure washing, it’s still a good idea to hire a professional service for soft washing your home, as they’ll have the equipment, solutions, and skills it takes to get your home looking great.
Keeping Your Home Looking Great Inside and Out
Washing your home incorrectly could cause damage to your siding, doors, or window sills that can be costly to fix. Learning the difference between soft washing vs pressure washing is important if you want to make the right choice for your home’s exterior.
If you’re looking for other tips to keep your home looking great on a budget, check out the rest of our blog for more content like this.
