Don't Pressure Wash that Beauty!

Pressure washing seems like a pretty normal maintenance item for homeownership, right? My dad definitely pressure washed things around the house as a kid, and I often see it when taking walks around neighborhoods on the weekends.

When researching interior painting recently, I stumbled upon one of my favorite Instagram account’s website, The Craftsman Blog. I always love his content on Instagram. I find him to be funny and educational and he fixes up the old houses that we all love, but I had never gone to his website or was even aware he had a blog. What a treasure trove of information!

I read about the downside to all of that pressure washing I had seen again and again.

The long and the short of it: it’s bad news for wood-frame houses and brick, too (not that we have a ton of that here in San Francisco)!

The sheer pressure from these washers can cause water to get underneath the wood siding of these houses, and when that happens, it’s really difficult to evaporate, and you can just imagine what happens once water remains inside your walls (eek!).

For older brick homes, the mortar is softer and will be blasted away, and eventually, you’ll have to repoint your whole house, which is very costly.

A great added bonus (sarcasm) is the possibility of exposing lead paint into your environment (or your neighbor’s!), so you’ve got to be cautious of that, too.

The master craftsman has a blog post for a safer way to pressure wash, and you can find that here. And if you’d like to do a deep dive into this subject, another favorite website of mine has done a post about this and other abrasive cleaners here.