Pressure cleaning across Melbourne
Roof tiles, driveways and garage floors, timber decking and verandahs, render and metal. We do it as a job on its own, and we do it as the first step before we paint, because the two are the same work done to the same standard.
If it needs washing, we wash it
Most of what comes off a Melbourne property is the same handful of things: moss and lichen on the north side, oil and tyre marks on concrete, grey weathered timber, and years of road dust on anything facing the street.
- Roof tilesMoss, lichen and the chalked out surface of an old roof come off under high pressure, tile by tile, including the ridge lines. On a roof that has gone mouldy right across, this is most of the job.
- Concrete: driveways, garage floors, hardstandOil, tyre marks and ground in grime. Concrete is washed under strong high pressure with acid, which does more than clean it: it opens the surface up so a coating can bite into the slab instead of sitting on top of it.
- Timber decking, verandahs and stairsOld decks go grey and the traffic lines wear back to bare timber. Timber is washed with a decking cleaner under high pressure, never acid, then left to dry properly before anything else happens to it.
- Render, brick and painted wallsStreet facing walls collect road dust and exhaust. On an industrial or commercial building, getting years of that off is half the job before a brush comes out.
- MetalColorbond, steel columns, roller doors and fascia. Cleaned back so a metal primer has something sound to hold to.
Water alone is not the whole job
A pressure washer on its own moves dirt around. What decides whether the surface is actually ready is what goes on with the water, and that changes with the surface. Using the wrong one is worse than using none.
- Acid on concrete, and only on concreteConcrete is porous and sealed up with age and oil. Acid etches it open again. That is why a garage floor we have cleaned holds its coating for years instead of peeling in sheets the first summer.
- Decking cleaner on timber, never acidAcid on a deck damages the timber fibre. A decking cleaner lifts the grey and the mould out of the grain without eating the board, which matters because the deck has to last longer than the coating on it.
- Then it has to dryTimber goes back overnight at least, and is machine sanded the next day before any coating. Painting a deck that is still holding water is the single most common way a deck job fails.
What it actually looks like
Filmed on a job in Greendale, where the tile roof had gone mouldy right across. Washed back first, then primed and finished with two sprayed topcoats. The finished roof is on our roofs page.
- A job on its own. Plenty of cleaning work never becomes a paint job, and that is fine. If you just want the roof, the drive or the deck cleaned, that is a job we quote and do.
- Or the first step. If painting follows, the wash is not a separate bill bolted on. It is the part of the work that decides how long the paint lasts.
- No travel charge. We do not charge more for one postcode than another, and travel is not added on top.
- Fully insured. Twenty million dollars of public liability, and a certificate goes to your office before we start if you need one.
How to tell it is time
Most of these creep up slowly enough that you stop seeing them. They are easiest to spot on the side of the house you look at least.
- Green or black patches on the roofUsually the south side, where the sun does not reach. Moss and lichen hold water against the tile, and on an old roof that is what shortens its life, not the colour fading.
- The deck has gone silver greyTimber greys as the surface fibre breaks down, and the traffic lines wear back first. That grey layer has to come off before any coating, otherwise you are coating the damage rather than the board.
- The driveway is darker than it used to beOil, rubber and general road grime bed into concrete. It rarely comes back with a hose, and if you are planning to coat the slab it has to come off first.
- Before you paint anything outsideWhatever is on the surface ends up under the paint. This is the step that decides how long the job lasts, which is why we would rather do it ourselves than inherit someone else's wash.
- Before the property goes on the marketA cleaned roof, drive and deck change how a house photographs and how it reads at an inspection, for a fraction of what painting costs.
Something that needs cleaning?
Tell us what it is and send a photo if you have one. We will come and look, then give you one fixed price that does not move.
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