Should I Pressure Wash My House Before Painting?
Clean your walls for better painting results
Intro: When gearing up to revamp your home exterior, you may look at the siding and wonder if you should pressure wash your house before painting or just forge ahead. Pressure washing is a great tool in the fight against grime, but it’s not the gentlest cleaning procedure out there. Understanding exactly when and how to power wash your exterior surfaces is the best way to ensure you make the most of your money and time.
Why Pressure Wash Before Painting
Pressure washing your home before painting removes the dirt, mold, mildew, and other grime that can prevent paint from properly adhering to a surface. Pressure washing will also make your paint job look nicer while enhancing its durability thanks to the clean, smooth surface it creates.
Pressure Washing the Exterior vs. Hand Washing
It’s possible to hand wash your siding in lieu of pressure washing, but it’s an incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive process. It’s also not nearly as effective as pressure washing.
Plus, pressure washers can better reach higher surfaces and hard-to-reach cracks and crevices. For that reason, it’s typically best to reserve hand washing for small areas or more fragile surfaces that can’t withstand powerful streams of water, such as stucco and old, brittle vinyl siding.
What Will Happen to the Paint if You Paint a Dirty Siding?
Painting over dirty siding can result in an uneven appearance, poor paint adhesion, and premature peeling and cracking. That’s because dirt and grime create a barrier between the paint and siding, which prevents the paint from properly bonding to the surface, making it more susceptible to weathering and wear and tear.
How Long After Power Washing Can You Paint?
The waiting period depends on several factors, including the type of siding and the weather conditions. However, you’ll need to wait until the surface is completely dry, which can take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours under optimal conditions. Trying to paint before the surface is completely dry can trap moisture under the paint, leading to bubbling, blistering, and mold growth.
How to Pressure Wash Your Home
You can hire a local pressure washer to get this job done, but it’s also a great project to DIY if you’ve got patience and some experience with power tools. Here are the basic steps to pressure wash your home all by yourself.
Preparing to Pressure Wash
Pressure washing sure looks fun, but don’t get carried away. This tool can do a lot of damage if you don’t practice caution while you work. You’ll want to wear goggles and sturdy, close-toed shoes to protect yourself from high-powered streams of pressured water. Also, cover up anything near the area to be pressure washed, like plants and fixtures with electrical components.
If it’s your first time using a pressure washer, it’s a great idea to practice in a safe, open space before you really get started. Once you have control over the stream of water, test out how to use the different nozzles to ensure you get the right angles and spray distribution. This helps avoid damage when you apply pressure to your walls.
Work Section by Section
Work in small sections on the exterior of your home. Most experts recommend applying the cleaning agent from bottom to top and then rinsing top to bottom. Wash one side of the house at a time, and take extra care if you’re working on multiple stories.
After Washing
Be sure to allow adequate time for your siding to dry once you’ve finished washing. You can’t start laying down paint immediately after pressure washing, or the paint won’t set right. Give it at least one full day before moving ahead.
Consider Gentle Washing Instead
Some materials aren’t meant to be pressure washed, like very porous wood or damaged siding. In that case, you can always clean your walls the old-fashioned way: with time and elbow grease.
First, sweep away any cobwebs, leaves, and dirt. Dilute a mild detergent with water and apply it to a brush. Clean the walls with the brush until they gleam in the sun. Rinse everything off with water and then let it dry for a full day.
How to Keep Your Walls Clean After Pressure Washing
It’s a real bummer to watch your freshly-cleaned walls slowly descend into grime-filled madness. Here are some basic maintenance tips to make sure your walls stay clean for as long as humanly possible.
Spot clean when necessary. Whenever a bit of grime appears on the wall, blast it away with a mild cleaning solution and a brush or cloth.
Keep up with yearly pressure washes. This not only helps the walls look as clean as the day they were put up but also lengths the lifespan of exterior paint.
Clear away debris from the roof. Collected debris on the roof, like leaves and detritus, eventually travel down to the walls and cause a mess. Keep this in check by clearing out the gutters and clearing away debris from the roof.
Conduct repairs immediately. A small crack in the siding can quickly become a big problem as moisture seeps in, so fix it up as soon as you see one.
DIY vs. Hiring a Pro
Pressure washing is easy enough to do yourself with a rented machine, but going the DIY route carries some risks. Pressure washers can damage the exterior or cause bodily harm if you aren’t careful.
Depending on the size of the project, the cost to pressure wash a house on your own may actually not be that much less than hiring a local pressure washing pro to do it for you. Pros charge $25 to $100 per hour, while renting a machine for the day will set you back $35 to $175. Unless you already own a pressure washer or can borrow one from a neighbor, bringing in a professional can save you time and hassle.
Lawrence Bonk contributed to this piece.
Frequently Asked Questions
If the exterior walls are not thoroughly cleaned before a paint job, the paint could stick to the grime, creating obvious imperfections along the way. Beyond that, painting over a freshly-cleaned wall just about doubles the lifespan of the paint, from three or four years to seven to ten years.
While a pressure washer is certainly powerful enough to remove old and peeling paint, this is not a great idea to do yourself. The pressure washer is so powerful that you could actually damage the walls as you strip away the paint. It’s best to leave paint stripping to the pros.
Pressure washing is the best way to remove paint that’s already peeling from certain types of vinyl and aluminum siding and some masonry. However, if the paint is largely intact and not yet peeling, or if your siding material can’t withstand the pressure, you may need to use other methods, such as chemical paint strippers, a heat gun, a paint scraper, or sanding.
Experts agree that spring and fall are the best times to pressure wash a home’s exterior due to the mild weather. Line up a pressure washing project once every year, anywhere from March to November, for the best results. This will vary by location, but aim for a warm, dry season, whenever that may be in your climate.