Why Early Spring is the Best Time for Professional Pressure Washing of Your Home

After a long winter, most homeowners look forward to spring cleaning and sprucing up their home’s exterior. As temperatures rise and the landscape dries out from winter precipitation, early spring provides ideal weather conditions for tackling one of the most effective spring cleaning tasks—professional pressure washing.

Hiring a professional pressure washing service during early spring, as opposed to waiting until summer, provides numerous benefits that can save you time and money while still thoroughly cleaning the exterior of your home before peak gardening and outdoor living season. Read on to learn why early spring is the optimum time for power washing the exterior of your home.

Weather Conditions

Temperatures in early spring are cool enough to prevent exterior surfaces from quickly drying out during the power washing process. This allows the high-pressure water ample time to penetrate and lift away built-up dirt and grime. If you wait until summer to pressure wash, the hot sun can cause surfaces to dry out too rapidly, decreasing cleaning efficiency.

Early spring weather is also optimal because there is increased rainfall and precipitation. This moisture helps naturally loosen caked-on dirt and pollutants. By pressure washing in early spring, you capitalize on this natural soaking period. The high-pressure water can then more easily scrub away loosened winter buildup.

Availability & Affordability

The busy summer season has not yet hit, making it easier to schedule reputable pressure washing companies in early spring. Providers are likely to have greater availability and flexibility to book appointments during this slower business period. Taking advantage of this lull by scheduling in early spring can result in faster service at better prices before peak demand hits.

Many pressure washing companies even offer special discounts during the spring to incentivize homeowners to book jobs during this optimal season for exterior cleaning. This allows providers to fill up their schedules in advance of the busy summer and prevent staff downtime later on. By locking in spring discounts, homeowners can save significantly on high-quality pressure washing services.

Jumpstart Gardening & Improve Curb Appeal

A freshly pressure-washed exterior provides the perfect blank slate for spring landscape projects. Once all exterior surfaces have been stripped down to the bare substrate, it is easier to spot cracks, holes, rotten wood, and other defects needing repair. Making necessary fixes and touch-ups is cheaper and easier after pressure washing removes surface debris that would otherwise hide flaws.

The revived, glistening-clean appearance of a newly pressure-washed exterior also enhances the visual appeal of spring flowers, lush greenery, and other landscape additions. Vibrant spring plants and flowers really pop against the clean backdrop of brick, stone, siding, and other building materials after grime buildup has been wiped away. Starting the gardening season with renewed exterior surfaces improves overall curb appeal.

Prevent Further Damage & Mold Growth

Over time, continual exposure to sun, rain, snow, and temperature fluctuations can cause building materials to degrade. For example, water repeatedly freezing and thawing in tiny cracks in siding, roof shingles, concrete, and other materials will steadily expand the cracks and increase deterioration. This damage is largely invisible when exterior surfaces are caked over in dirt, moss, spilled paint, tree sap, and other gunk obstructing cracks from view.

Additionally, accumulated organic debris provides food for mold, mildew, and other fungal or bacterial growth. Spores take root and spread beneath layers of debris, unseen to homeowners. Left untreated through another winter, existing microbe colonies will expand. As temperatures rise in spring, new generations of spores will activate and spread quickly across untreated surfaces.

By hiring professional power washing services in early spring, all this hidden deterioration and contamination is halted in its tracks and further damage is prevented. The high-pressure water blast scrubs away debris to expose cracks, trouble spots, and mold/mildew colonies so necessary repairs, sealing, and disinfection can be performed.

Top 5 Areas of Your Home to Pressure Wash This Spring

Though your entire home's exterior will benefit from professional cleaning in early spring, not all surfaces require the same level of attention or high-pressure water concentration. Prioritizing these five exterior hot spots will yield the most dramatic spring cleaning results:

1. Driveways & Sidewalks Over the winter, your home’s walkways essentially become a parking garage for vehicles leaking motor oil, antifreeze, brake fluid, and other oily substances. Simultaneously, sidewalks bear the brunt of salt damage, foot traffic grime, lawn fertilizer spills, fallen leaves, animal droppings, loose gravel, and other stormy weather residue.

By spring, staining and ground-in buildup accumulates heavily on exterior concrete and pavement around your home. Pressure washing blasts away unsightly oil stains, tire track marks, salt residue, and debris that accumulated over the winter. This restores a like-new appearance and helps prevent premature cracking and pitting.

1. Patios, Decks & Porches Similarly to sidewalks, exterior living spaces endure plenty of wear-and-tear over winter as fallen leaves, mud, snowmelt, road salt, and other gunk turn wooden decks and porches into lackluster eyesores. Early spring cleaning extends living space from indoor entertainment areas so you can enjoy outdoor dinner parties, family gatherings, and backyard barbeques sooner.

It’s important when handling decks and older wooden structures, though, that you hire a reputable professional pressure washing company specializing in wood surfaces. The high-pressure blast must be carefully controlled to avoid splintering fragile lumber or further opening cracks. Professionals use specialty low-pressure attachments and experienced techniques honed from wood restoration training.

1. House Siding & Brickwork: Overhanging trees, lawn fertilization, dusty summer air, storm winds, and other environmental factors bombard the siding, trim, brick, and other exterior surfaces of your home year-round. Pressure washing the entire upper exterior of your home blasts away unsightly streaking, discoloration, mildew stains, spider nests, dirt debris, sap drips, muddy splatter, and other accumulated grunge.

A sparkling clean finish restores visual appeal and helps prevent deterioration, water damage, invasive pests, and mold issues to exterior walls. When coupled with caulking, sealing, painting, and siding repairs, pressure washing prepares surfaces for enhanced protection from seasonal elements going forward.

1. Roof Shingles & Gutters: Though less visible than other exterior surfaces, sufficient debris, moss, and algae buildup on the roof and clogged gutters prevents proper rainwater runoff. This often leads to moisture seeping into attics, detrimental excess weight stress on roofs, flooding issues in heavy storms, and eventual interior leaks or rotting in overloaded areas.

Giving roof shingles and gutters a deep clean removes surprising amounts of compacted leaves, twigs, accumulated garbage, and dark streaks of resilient mold and algae overrunning the roof’s surface. Pressure washing loosens and flushes out hefty debris clogs to renew drainage efficiency and roof function before severe spring weather hits.

When tackling roof and gutter cleaning, make sure to take necessary safety precautions by hiring experienced crews specially trained in working safely at extreme roof heights with high-pressure hoses.

1. Outdoor Furniture & Decor Don’t let faded, mildewed lawn decor and seating areas detract from your carefully cultivated garden beds, fruit trees, flower beds and crisp exterior spring cleaning. Restoring outdoor accent pieces to like-new condition is simple and affordable with professional pressure washing services.

Fabric cushions, synthetic all-weather wicker, resin, aluminum, sealed hardwoods, and other outdoor furniture materials scrub up beautifully when blasted free of mold, mildew, tree sap, bird droppings, loose rust, and years of UV fading or water marks. Likewise, stains and growth plaguing statues, arbors, retaining walls, fences, sheds, and other decorative exterior infrastructure disappear.

Refreshing accessories with pressure washing ensures outdoor living attractions coordinate perfectly with spring landscape upgrades. Random accent pieces also gain new versatility for creative reconfiguration and walkway enhancement.

As you soak in increasingly warmer and longer sunny days this coming spring, add professional pressure washing on the list of essential home exterior maintenance to fully optimize livability and resale value for years to come. Tackling dirty buildup and hidden deterioration sooner than later prevents more headaches, bigger expenses, and wasted time down the road.