Driveway Cleaning in York, PA

Concrete around here takes a beating. Salt comes up the driveway on your tires all winter, the shady side of the slab stays damp long enough to grow algae, and whatever's been parked in the same spot since spring has left a shadow behind.

Here's the part most people don't realize: a driveway that looks permanently dingy is usually just clean concrete with a layer sitting on top of it. We do driveway cleaning in York, PA and the towns around it. We measure the slab, tell you what it costs before we touch anything, and we're normally finished the same afternoon.

How we actually clean a driveway

The order matters more than the horsepower does. Get the order wrong and you end up with clean patches and stripes you can't undo.

1. Clear it and protect it. Blow off the leaves and grit, move what needs moving, and soak the grass and beds along the edges. Wet plants don't drink up cleaning solution.
2. Pre-treat. Anything green or black on concrete is alive. Algae, mildew, moss, lichen. It comes off with a diluted cleaner and a surfactant that helps it cling to a slope instead of running straight into the street.
3. Let it sit. Eight to twelve minutes, and we keep re-wetting so it never dries on the surface. This step does most of the real work, and it's the one people skip when they rent a machine for a Saturday.
4. Surface clean it. We use a rotary surface cleaner, not a wand. Two jets spinning under a shroud spread the pressure out evenly, and that's what keeps the finish looking uniform.
5. Handle the stains separately. Oil, rust and tire marks don't care about the chemistry that kills algae. They get their own treatment and their own pass.
6. Rinse it all down. The slab, the edges, your grass, and the sidewalk below it.

What it costs

We price off measured square footage, not a guess from the curb. Before we give you a number we want to know how big it is, what's on it, and how we're getting water to it. These are the things that move the price:

Whatever we quote you is what you pay. If we get started and find it's worse than the photo showed, we stop and talk to you first. We're not going to hand you a bigger bill at the end than the one you agreed to.

Where high pressure ruins concrete

Concrete is the one surface around your house that genuinely handles high pressure. That's exactly why so much of it gets wrecked. People figure more is better and take a wand to it.

• Flat broom-finished concrete is fine with a surface cleaner at full working pressure. The shroud is what makes it safe, because you get even coverage instead of one concentrated line.
• A zero or fifteen degree tip held close will etch the slab. Those marks are permanent, they look worse once the concrete dries, and no amount of cleaning afterward takes them out.
• Pavers lose their joint sand under high pressure. If we're cleaning pavers, re-sanding is something we talk about up front, not a surprise afterward.
• Stamped or sealed decorative concrete gets low pressure and chemistry only. High pressure strips the sealer and leaves it blotchy, and then it has to be re-sealed to look right again.
• Old or flaking concrete gets gentler treatment. Pressure speeds up what's already failing, and we'll tell you that before we start instead of after.

If you want to read more on it, the Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association has a solid guide to removing stains from concrete, including why you should figure out what a stain is before you throw anything at it.

What comes out, and what doesn't

We'd rather tell you this now than have you standing in the driveway at the end of the day feeling let down.

Comes out

Algae, mildew, moss, lichen, road film, general dirt, leaf and tannin stains, light surface rust, and that gray dullness that's really just years of grime.

Fights back

Motor oil that's been soaking into old concrete for years usually lightens a lot without disappearing, because the oil is in the slab and not on it. Deep fertilizer rust, dried paint and black tire marks are the same story. Tire marks especially, since that's plasticizer leaching out of the rubber into the concrete, and a lot of the time it's there for good.

When we quote you, we'll say which bucket we think your stains fall into. If we think something's only going to lighten, you'll hear it from us before you say yes.

Concrete we've cleaned around the county

There are more of these over on the job portfolio.

When you should call us, and when you shouldn't

Call us if your concrete has gone gray or green and you want it back to an even color, or you're putting the house on the market and the driveway is the first thing anybody sees. Also call if you'd just rather not spend a Saturday with a rented wand, which is honestly most people.

Hold off if your concrete is cracked, heaving or actively flaking apart. Cleaning it makes that damage easier to see, not harder, and you're better off sorting that out first. We also don't seal driveways, so if you were hoping to have it washed and sealed the same day, that's not us. And if the whole point is getting one specific oil stain gone, read that section above and then call us so we can look at it before you get your hopes up.

Questions people actually ask us

Not sure whether yours is worth doing yet? Send a photo through the form and we'll tell you straight, even if the answer is that it can wait until spring.