Why Tom Curren Companies Won’t Power Wash Your Home

     Power washing introduces one of the biggest pain points for customers to consider when trying to make a change to their home: the cost. While some companies may sell you a seemingly reasonable price, the potential for damage during the process and its associated price tags are often hidden from the consumer at first glance. Directing water at such an intense speed and pressure at the outside of your home may not only reach the outside, but also spread to create damage within the home’s walls.

     For homes with wooden frames or any wooden exterior features, such as shingles or clapboards, water can sometimes gain access inside the home by making its way underneath the siding and moving into the walls, insulation, and more. This unwanted water can then become trapped inside of these narrow, unseen spaces around your home- causing damage from within. Homes built with brick and mortar can also fall victim to similar water-caused deterioration, as the excessive moisture can make the home’s structure soften. Areas with loose paint are especially vulnerable to harm, as harsh power washing can remove these sections of paint and allow the water to make contact with the wood underneath.

     These potential hazards often come with hefty consequences. According to a study from HomeAdvisor, trim repair costs for your home can cost anywhere from $100 to $1,684 (depending on how extensive the damage may be) on top of what you have already paid for your power wash. In addition, DIY Network warns that clapboard siding ranges from $5 to $8 per square foot, with the average two-story house spending between $14,000 and $23,000 to install an entire exterior.

     Power washing your home can also cause loose lead paint chips to be embedded into your lawn. For many older homes, lead paint is an unfortunate reality when attempting to make any changes, both on the interior and exterior of the residence. Removing any paint from the home with high-pressure water can lead to these dangerous chips being scattered around your home, near children and pets alike. Tom Curren Companies makes sure that all of our crews are EPA Certified, so that they know how to safely service, remove, and/or dispose of any lead paint in your home before even entering it.

     Though at first power washing can seem like an easy option to brighten the exterior of your home, this “wash” is only creating a false sense of clean for the consumer. Without hand-scrubbing the surface as our crews do, mold and mildew are often left behind. Meaning that if you paint over this newly “clean” home, you are giving mold and mildew the opportunity to grow through your fresh coat of paint- making you strip the paint down to the bare wood in order to remove the issue that was there all along. This often leaves customers with additional, unwanted costs thanks to poor prep work on the vendor’s part. At Tom Curren Companies, our crews will scrub your home by hand with bleach and Jomax, and we will be prepared for whatever we find across the exterior of your home.