As any homeowner knows, making sure that the exterior of your property is clean is a key part of any house maintenance routine. A clean house looks good and demonstrates how much time, care, and attention you invest in your personal property. However, there’s more to cleaning the outside of your home than mere aesthetics. In this article, we will take a look at five additional reasons why washing the exterior of your house is important.
1. Prevent Damage to Your Home
During rainy days and the winter months, your house will absorb moisture through its timbers, brickwork, and plaster. If allowed to settle, this moisture can result in a layer of pollutants, dust, and other contaminants, generally known as grime. If this layer of grime secures a foothold on your property, it can start staining the walls permanently, or growing mold and mildew that slowly eat away at your house. Pressure washing gets rid of this layer, leaving your house looking fresh and clean.
2. Save Money
While it does cost money to get your house professionally pressure washed, it offers a great return on investment. Failure to clean the outside of your home can lead to chipped and peeling paint that needs refinishing, moldy timbers that need replacing, and stained walls that need replastering. Compared to the cost of those jobs, an annual or semi-annual pressure wash is no big deal.
3. A Great Preparation for Repainting and Refinishing
On the other hand, if you’re already planning to redecorate the outside of your property, a pressure wash is the best way to prep the building. Paint, plaster, and render generally don’t stick well to dirty surfaces. Contaminants on the exterior surface get mixed in with them, causing them to lose adhesion. This means you’re facing a poorly-finished job before you even start. By pressure washing the property, you create the perfect surface for refinishing your home in style.
4. Removes Health and Safety Hazards
Pressure washing isn’t just a way to improve the look of your property, but also to protect the health of you and your family. While certain types of dirt and grime – particularly mildew, dust, and mold – may look unattractive, the real threat is the risk they pose to personal health.
Conditions such as asthma, hayfever, and various allergic reactions can be exacerbated by the presence of mold and mildew. Certain varieties, such as the infamous black mold, release toxins in their spores that can result in mycotoxicosis, causing abdominal and muscle pain, numbness and tingling in fingers and toes, as well as brain fog and lack of concentration. A regular house washing routine can help eliminate that risk.
5. Better for the Environment
One of the major benefits of pressure washing is that most of the hard work is done just with the force of the water as it exits the nozzle of the power washer. In most cases, this alone is enough to dislodge dirt and grime from the outside of your property. What this means for you and your home is fewer chemical cleaning agents soaking into the grass, soil, and vegetation around your house. This is much better for the environment, as it does not pollute the water table with toxic chemicals.