House Washing in York, PA
Soft washing for vinyl, aluminum and stucco. Low pressure and the right cleaner, so the dirt comes off and your siding stays on the house.
Student-run & local · Certified & Professional · 5.0★ on Google
That green-black film creeping up the shady side of your house is algae and mildew, and it always shows up worst on the wall that never really dries out. Artillery fungus is the other one we deal with constantly around here. Tiny black specks blown up onto light siding out of hardwood mulch beds, stuck on like little dots of tar.
Neither one comes off with pressure. House washing in York, PA is a chemistry job with a careful rinse, and that difference is basically whether your siding survives the process.
Not sure if you need the whole house done or just the gutters cleaned up? Send a photo and we'll tell you.
Why we never pressure wash siding
Soft washing means low pressure, closer to a strong garden hose than a pressure washer, plus a cleaner that actually kills what's growing on your walls. The cleaner does the work. The rinse just carries it away.
Here's what happens when somebody uses high pressure instead:
- It pushes water behind your panels. Siding is built to shed water running down it, not water driven up underneath it. Once that water's in the wall cavity you don't find out for a long time, and when you do it's expensive.
- It streaks aluminum. Older aluminum siding oxidizes into a chalky layer, and pressure cuts through that chalk unevenly. You end up with light and dark banding that doesn't come out.
- It damages stucco and EIFS. Both chip under concentrated pressure, and EIFS especially will hold water in the substrate once you've broken the surface.
- It leaves lap marks on vinyl. Clean stripes with dirty edges, which somehow looks worse than the dirt did.
The Polymeric Exterior Products Association, which used to be the Vinyl Siding Institute, says the same thing in their care and maintenance guide. Keep the stream level at eye height, never aim it upward, and never put undiluted bleach on siding.
What actually comes off
Comes off
Algae, mildew, mold, road film, pollen, spider webs and egg sacs, and that dull gray haze that's really just a few years of dirt. That covers most of what makes a house look tired.
Comes off partway
Artillery fungus is the tough one, and we'd rather be upfront about it. Penn State Extension has done more research on it than anybody, and they describe the spore masses as very difficult to remove without damaging whatever they're stuck to, and they usually leave a stain behind. Their write-up on artillery fungus is worth a read if you've got it.
We can normally improve it a good bit, especially the newer spots. We're not going to promise we'll get all of it, and anybody who does is telling you what you want to hear. One more thing from Penn State worth passing along: scraping the specks off so they drop into the mulch below just reinfests the mulch, because those spores are dormant, not dead.
Doesn't come off
Fading. Vinyl and aluminum lose their color to the sun over the years, and washing takes the dirt off faded siding without bringing the color back. If yours is chalky and washed out, we'll get it clean and even, not new. We'd rather you know that now.
What it costs
We price off wall area, which is the distance around your house times its height. Not the square footage on your listing. Two houses can both be 2,000 square feet inside and have completely different amounts of wall to wash, depending on the shape and whether it's one story or two.
| What we look at | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Wall area | Perimeter times height. It's the base of the quote and it's the number we actually go measure. |
| Stories | Second-story work is slower and needs different reach gear than a ranch does. |
| Siding material | Vinyl, aluminum, stucco, EIFS and painted wood all want different cleaner strengths and different care. |
| Artillery fungus | Treated separately, and by hand in the bad spots. Slow work, so we price it as an add-on rather than baking it into everyone's quote. |
| Landscaping | Thick beds and mature plants against the house mean more soaking, more covering up and more rinsing. |
| Gutter faces | Those black stripes down the front of your gutters are a separate process from washing siding. Usually worth adding, always quoted on its own. |
Whatever we quote you is what you pay. If we show up and find something the photos didn't show, we stop and talk to you before we do anything that changes the number.
Siding we've cleaned around here
More on the job portfolio, and the driveway cleaning page covers the concrete side of the same visit.
When you should call us, and when you shouldn't
Call us if you've got vinyl, aluminum or stucco with algae or mildew on it, especially on the north side. Also worth doing before you list the house, since a clean exterior changes that first listing photo more than almost anything else you can spend the money on.
Hold off if your paint is already peeling or your siding is loose, because washing speeds both of those up and you want them fixed first. If you've got known moisture problems behind EIFS, don't let anybody wash it until that's sorted out. And if what you're really after is faded siding looking new again, no wash is going to do that for you.
We cover York, Red Lion, Dallastown, Felton, Stewartstown, Shrewsbury, Spring Grove, New Freedom and York New Salem. First job with us is 10% off.
Questions people actually ask us
Do you pressure wash or soft wash?
Soft wash, every time. Your siding gets low pressure and a cleaner that kills the algae and mildew, then a careful rinse. High pressure on siding drives water behind the panels and can leave marks on aluminum and stucco that don't come out.
Is water going to get behind my siding?
Not the way we do it. We keep the stream level instead of aiming up underneath the laps, which is the exact mistake that pushes water into your wall. It's also what the vinyl siding trade association tells people to do.
Will the cleaner kill my plants?
We soak the beds and grass before we start, keep them wet while we work, and rinse everything down again at the end. Diluted cleaner on already-wet plants is fine. It's the plants that get hit dry that suffer, which is why we don't skip the soaking.
Can you get artillery fungus off?
We can usually improve it, especially newer spots, but we won't promise to get it all. Penn State describes those spore masses as very difficult to remove without damaging the surface, and they tend to leave a stain. If somebody guarantees you total removal, they're overselling it.
How often does a house need washing?
Every one to three years for most places around here. Shaded walls, north-facing walls and houses under a lot of tree cover are at the shorter end, because they stay damp longer.
Can you do the gutters too?
We can brighten up the gutter faces, which is what gets rid of those black vertical stripes. It's a separate process from the siding, so just mention it when you book and we'll quote both together.
If your siding has never been washed and you're not sure what you're even looking at, send us a photo. We'll tell you what it is, whether it'll come off, and roughly what it costs, even if the answer is that you don't need us yet.
Written by Owen Kauffman. I run XO Power Washing with Xavier, we're both students here in York County, and we do every job ourselves. No subcontractors, nobody in a call center. Got a question about your place? Just call us at 234-207-5553.
What else we clean
Most people having the house washed have us do the concrete while we're there.
5.0 on Google across York County
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