Why to pressure wash your home before painting

With cooler weather on the way, it’s a great time to think about painting your house. Before you get started, however, it’s important to have the ideal canvas to work off of. It might seem counterproductive to invest so much time and energy into cleaning a surface you’re just going to paint anyway, but there are important reasons to take this initial step.

Let’s learn why!

1. Pressure washing removes dirt, dust, and cobwebs.

This one might seem obvious, but pressure washing gets rid of all that nasty gunk that builds up on your house’s siding over the long months. Dirt, dust, cobwebs, insects–everything that can pile up and leave nasty stains behind. If you’re just going to paint over it anyway, you may think you don’t need to remove all this yuck. However, painting over dirt and dust can lead to mottled, uneven painting, cracks in your color, and bumps in the surface. It’s not a good look! Plus, if these nasty bits get into the paint as you’re painting, you can end up tracking this detritus all over your beautiful paint job.

2. House paint needs a clean surface to bond to.

It’s true! House paint won’t stick as well (meaning you’ll need an extra coat or two) if you don’t start on a clean surface. Paint clings to the first thing it touches: If that thing is dirt and dust, you’ll end up with lumps in your paint, and lots of drips down the walls. If these dry as-is, it leads to an uneven look for your house color–and probably an angry HOA. By cleaning your exterior first, you leave a shiny, clean surface for your house paint to bond to. This improves the color quality as well as the lifetime of the paint job.

3. Pressure washing reaches places where the old “bucket and sponge” method can’t.

“Okay,” you think. “So I need a clean painting surface–I’ll just clean it myself!” And then when you’re out there with your bucket and sponge, you realize what you’ve just gotten yourself into. There’s no reason to take an entire weekend to do what a pressure washer can do in a couple of hours. (Plus, if you tire yourself out cleaning the outside of your home, you might want to put off the paint job for a week or two–then suddenly, all the dust and dirt is back!!) Skip the stress and go for a top-quality pressure wash instead!

4. In the case of mold and mildew, removal gets the job done.

Like dirt and dust, mold and mildew can get trapped under house paint. This is bad for a few reasons: There’s the aesthetic reason, where you don’t want bumps, cracks, and runs in your paint. What’s worse, however, is that mold and mildew can continue to grow under the paint. This can lead to a full-blown mold or mildew infestation, when all you did was try to paint over a few unseemly areas. Before you get started on house paint, it’s critical to treat a mold or mildew problem.

5. This cleaning step reveals issues you might not have noticed before.

There’s nothing worse than thinking you’re done with a project, only to realize you’re worse off than when you started. Applying a fresh coat of paint can be extremely difficult if there are structural integrity issues in your siding, mold or mildew problems, or random things popping up like loose nails, cracks to patch, or wood to replace. A pressure wash can reveal all of those problem areas you otherwise wouldn’t notice until after you finished the paint job. This way, you can tackle problems proactively instead of having to redo all your hard work once you’ve fixed the basics.

If you’re thinking about painting your home or business this winter, the first step is to call Diamond Power Washing & Maintenance. We’ll give your home an excellent deep clean to leave you with a sparkling canvas! Give us a call at (904) 747-4DPW (4379) to get started.