Are you wondering if pressure washing is really worth it for your home or business? After all, you have a garden hose and can spray down the outside of your building yourself if that’s all it comes down to, right?

Wait just a moment, there!

We’re here to tell you that pressure washing has so many more benefits than most people suspect. It’s not just about rinsing a little dirt off your siding, and you definitely can’t do it with a garden hose.

Pressure washing provides a thorough, deep cleaning that is a lot more necessary than you might think—it’s not all looks, though appearance is important too. A good cleaning can prevent damage to your home or business and even help keep your family or employees safe and healthy.

This guide will cover 12 reasons why you really do need professional pressure washing for your house or commercial property. But first, let’s talk about what it actually is.

What is Pressure Washing?

Simply put, it is the use of high-powered jets of water to clean mud, dust, grime, loose paint, moss, algae, and other residue from surfaces.

The “pressure” part is what makes it so much more effective than just regular washing with water and elbow grease, as well as the ability for the jets of water to reach into tiny nooks and crannies and blast out all the dirt hiding out of sight. The washers produce pressures from 750 to 30,000 pound-force per square inch, or psi. (For comparison, the average force from a home water faucet is about 40 to 60 psi.)

Pressurized washers can be used to clean surfaces such as:

• Siding
• Decks
• Driveways
• Patios
• Gutters
• Roofs
• Sidewalks
• Parking lots
• Fencing
• Vehicles
• Lawn mowers
• Outdoor furniture
• Grills

Why You Need Pressure Washing

Now that we’ve covered what pressure washing is and what you can use it for, let’s dive into the reasons why you need it for your home or business property.

1: Prevents Damage

What harm can some grime and moss do to a house? It turns out… a lot. Dirt, moss, grime, and other substances that build up on your building or outdoor items can eat away at surfaces, causing corrosion. They not only damage paint, concrete sealant, and other surface coatings, they can actually cause damage to the materials underneath, like your vinyl siding or the wood of your deck.

The damage doesn’t just affect surfaces, because once surface coatings and materials start to break down, they leave everything underneath them vulnerable to damage as well. That means the interior of your walls can be exposed to moisture, vermin, and other intruders that can cause serious problems with the structure of the building and cause you a lot of discomforts.

Dirt and other substances also tend to build up in the small crevices that every building has. Out of sight and out of reach of the rain and wind, the grime can accumulate for years until crevices are packed with bacterial breeding grounds.

Pressurized washing lifts dirt, grime, moss, and other substances off your surfaces, and it also gets into even the tiniest crevices to blast out everything that has built up over time, stopping the damage before it has a chance to really take hold and create a major headache for the property owner.

2: Saves Money

After learning about the damage that can be stopped in its tracks with a good wash, it makes sense that pressure washing also saves you a lot of money by preventing damage.

Having your home or business washed on a regular basis is far less expensive than repairing the damage that can result from letting the dirt and grime build-up. Pressure washing is preventative maintenance, and you know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

3: Saves Time and Energy

Your time is precious, so this is a significant benefit. You may be convinced that cleaning your building’s exterior is important, but why should you use pressure washing in particular? The amount of time and effort you save with a pressure washer, instead of trying to clean your items or buildings manually, is truly impressive.

Imagine getting yourself a long-handled sponge mop and a bucket of water and going outside to spend your weekend scrubbing away at outside of your house. You would get an excellent arm workout, so that’s good, but you might not even be able to finish the entire thing in a couple of days. Not to mention that all that time and hard work would pretty much be for nothing since there’s no way manual washing can be as effective and thorough as cleaning with a pressure washer.

The amount of time it would take to pressure wash your building depends on a lot of factors such as the size of your home or business, the number of people working on the washing, and how accessible all parts of the exterior are. But, it’s safe to say that even a large house could probably be completed within a few hours, and smaller surfaces could be looking like new within 30 minutes.

4: Cleaner is Safer

We all know that good hygiene is important to maintaining our health, but many people don’t realize that the cleanliness of exterior surfaces around our homes and workplaces can also have a direct impact on the health and safety of our families, employees, and even our pets.

Dirt and grime build-up provides the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and vermin, which are notorious for carrying disease. And, if the damage is allowed to spread, it can leave the interior of your building vulnerable to spores that can cause illness.

Pressurized washing removes the threat of disease-causing bacteria and creates an environment that is less hospitable to vermin, protecting the safety of everyone in the building. It also removes built-up pollen from your surfaces, so if you or anyone you know suffers from pollen allergies, pressure washing can help reduce their allergy suffering.

5: Boosts Your Curb Appeal

We’ve explained that pressure washing isn’t all about appearances by any means, but it definitely bears mentioning that it can have a dramatic effect on the look of your home and business.

It’s actually shocking how much of a visual difference there is before and after using a pressurized washer. Don’t believe us? Hop on over to YouTube and search “pressure washing;” you’ll find hundreds of videos and even whole channels dedicated to pressure washing because people love to see the drastic and satisfying change as a surface is a pressure washed.

If you have a brick pathway covered in moss and dirt, or siding that’s covered in grime, you might not even know what color they truly are until after they get a good wash. They’ll literally be looking brand new again, which boosts your curb appeal considerably.

Curb appeal is important for homes, but it’s doubly important for businesses—fair or not, a lot of people will judge the quality of your goods or services by the appearance of your building, so boosting the curb appeal of your commercial property can actually increase your business.

6: Increases the Value of Your Home

If you’re thinking of selling your home, you’re probably looking for ways to increase its value. Pressurized washing is an inexpensive and effective way to do just that. When prospective buyers show up and see a thick coating of dirt on everything, they assume the home is in poor shape and not worth much. But if the first thing they see is clean, gleaming surfaces that look brand new, they’ll have no reason to suspect that your home is worth less than top dollar.

7: Primes Surfaces for Renovation

Considering sprucing up your building with a new coat of paint, or a more drastic change like new siding or even an addition? Before you start renovations on the exterior of your home or business, it’s a good idea to get it washed first.

As you know, you can’t just slap paint down on a dirty surface. Besides basic cleaning, pressurized washing is also capable of removing loose or peeling paint as well, leaving you with a smooth, primed surface to work on.

Why You Should Let the Pros Handle Pressure Washing

By now, we’ve hopefully given you some information that helped you see why pressure washing is so important for your home or business. You may be thinking of giving it a try yourself, but it’s the type of thing that is really better handled by professionals such as the friendly team at Mr. Handyman of West Knoxville. The following benefits will explain why pressure washing is a job for experienced hands.

9: Access to the Correct Equipment

Chances are, you don’t have a pressure washer just lying around ready to use. Sure, you could rent one, but that’s an expensive hassle and also very time-consuming. You’d have to find one to rent, pick it up, learn the basics of using it, complete your task, fill it back up with gas, and return it—all within one business day if you don’t want to incur extra charges.

On the other hand, a professional handyman already has the best equipment for the job and knows how to use it. He’ll arrive with the pressure washer ready to go and clear it away at the end of the day, no fuss necessary on your part.

10: Environmentally Friendly

Pressure washing has the potential to be hard on the environment for a couple of reasons: it uses a lot of water, it can involve soap and other cleaning chemicals that aren’t good for the soil, and it can rinse grime, grease, and other pollutants onto the ground or into the sewer.

A professional handyman such as the experts at Mr. Handyman will take care to minimize the impact to the environment with techniques that reduce water usage and avoid harmful chemicals. This protects not only the soil and plants nearby, but also wild animals and pets that may come in contact with pressure washer run-off.

11: Avoid Damage to Surfaces

Though pressure washing is a key way to prevent damage from grime and dirt build-up, pressure washers themselves can actually cause damage to surfaces if the user is inexperienced. This is because pressure washers are capable of a range of pressures and you’ll need to know the correct settings to use on the material you’re washing or you could cause scratches, chips, or even worse with the washer itself.

Professional handymen have the know-how to select the right amount of pressure for whatever you need to be cleaned; they can get your surfaces sparkling without the risk of damage.

12: Avoid Injuring Yourself

While the amount of pressure that comes out of a pressure washer is great for surfaces, it’s not pleasant applied to human flesh. Accidentally hitting yourself with the jet from a pressure washer can cause serious, gruesome injuries—not the kind of thing you want to risk. There’s also the possibility of slipping and hurting yourself or falling from a ladder while trying to reach difficult spots. An experienced pro knows what to do to keep both themselves and you safe from harm.

Trust Mr. Handyman for Your Pressure Washing Needs!

It’s great to have your home or business looking its best, but that’s only one part of what pressure washing can do for you. It also protects your property from damage, keeps your family or employees safe, and saves you a ton of time, energy, and money.

A good pressure wash isn’t an extravagance, it’s a necessity. Let the friendly experts at Mr. Handyman of West Knoxville handle your pressure washing—we’re certain you’ll be both surprised and pleased with the results.

Give us a call or fill out the Request Service form today to find out how we can help transform your property!