No finish will last long if it’s applied to a dirty surface. Pressure washing your deck is an important beginning step, and in some cases, it’s the only preparation you’ll need before refinishing. Mi-T-M pressure washers are the single best tool for cleaning your deck or porch, and with the proper use, will extend the life of your deck for many years.

Benefits of using a pressure washer include:

Safely removing dirt, mold, mildew and old stain
Removes many types of staining and discoloration using plain water
Safely strips old finishes including stains and peeling paint
Opens wood pores allowing deep penetration of the deck stain or finish

The last thing you want is to damage your deck, so it’s important to use the proper techniques when using a pressure washer to prepare your deck for refinishing.

The key is to use a sweeping motion along the grain of the wood and to keep the nozzle moving at all times.
Pull the trigger at the beginning of your first pass, directing the water at a low angle towards the surface.
Working on a swath of wood two boards wide, keep a distance of 8 to 12 inches from the surface, and spray with the grain of the wood to avoid damage to the surface of the deck.
Be consistent. This consistency will prevent lap marks.
Your second pass should overlap the first.
Walk back the entire length of the deck.
If you need to stop before the entire deck is clean, sweep the nozzle up and away from the deck before releasing the trigger.
Once the entire deck has been thoroughly cleaned, allow the surface to dry a minimum of 24 hours.
The next step is finishing and sealing your deck, once you’ve determined your desired finished appearance.
Proper preparation and application of a high-quality deck-coating system will extend the life and appearance of your deck dramatically.

How Does Pressure Washing House Exterior Surfaces Work and What Are the Benefits?

Most of us pay regular attention to cleanliness inside our homes, but we often forget to keep up with the outside in the same way. However, exterior home elements, such as siding, decks, and garden structures, get dirty just like interior carpets, floors, and walls. If you notice that your outside walls or deck surfaces are looking a little lackluster, getting a professional pressure washing business on the job can make a huge difference. Keeping your home’s exterior clean will keep your property looking great and ensure that your exterior remains in good condition for as long as possible.

Cleaning your siding or your deck requires a different approach than most of us are used to, or even have the capacity to do on our own. No matter how much you scrub, typical cleaning tools, solutions, and efforts simply won’t cut it when it comes to the exterior of your home. This is because, over time, dirt, pollen, and mold actually become embedded in exterior surfaces. This doesn’t mean that you, as a homeowner, have done anything wrong–it’s simply the reality of those surfaces’ exposure to the elements day in and day out. That said, however, you don’t have to let the elements simply have their way. Call a power washing pro to get out all of that debris! Power washing works by applying a combination of pressurized water, heat, and detergent to the outside surfaces of your home. Your cleaning professional will hook up his or her pressure washer machine to your water source, then apply the solution to the surfaces that you want cleaned using even, steady strokes. This will get out all of the embedded grime without damaging anything, leaving a beautiful, clean surface behind.

Just like deep cleaning your carpets or washing your walls, a pressure wash treatment isn’t something you need to do all the time. The microscopic debris that causes your home’s exterior to look a little world-weary doesn’t accumulate overnight, so there’s no reason to clean it off constantly. However, building in a power washing session to your home upkeep schedule on a regular basis–say, once a year–is a great way to keep your home looking in peak condition. This regular deep cleaning will also help those outside surfaces stay in good repair over the long term. When you regularly remove all the stuff that can get embedded in your siding or deck surfaces, you help preempt any deterioration that that debris might cause. Your power washing professional will also be able to bring to your attention any structural issues that they find or observe during the cleaning process. Armed with that information, you can address and repair any minor problems before they cause major damage.

Pressure washing is a simple and effective way to clean the outside surfaces of your home. This cleaning work has an immediate, positive impact on the look of your property, and, when done regularly, helps keep the outside of your home in good condition in the long term.

How a Pressure Washer Can Save You Time

Have you ever done manually scrubbing your driveway, pavement, your porch, patio or just cleaning the walls outside the house? Aside from that physical scrubbing is very tedious and tiresome; it just couldn’t cut the work. That’s why a lot of households, businesses and industries nowadays are using pressure washers. Compared to the ordinary garden hose, the pressure washer is more than a tool; it’s a piece of equipment that at some lever would require users and operators to do a bit of preparation to use in terms of safety and mastery. As described in our previous post, improper use and mishandling of this equipment would result to damage or injury. Although pressure washers are also rated with their cleaning speed (2700 cleaning units to 22500 cleaning units), being able to find out what you want in a pressure washer is what’s important.

First things first, to know how the washer could save you time, is to understand how it works (as in previous posts as well); then knowing on what type of job or application you are to use it. Like in many home or household application, the pressure washer is frequently used for cleaning, either it be a vehicle or a specific area or spot of the house. And often in these kind of works, it would only require them to use cold water and some form of detergent (liquid or powder); and there are available pressure washers with detergent applicators. And with this feature, this will definitely save you time compared to than just using a regular garden hose, manually soaping, physically scrubbing the area, and then rinsing. Not only does it saves you time, it also saves you on resources such as water and detergent because it covers a greater amount of area per gallon than regular washing. Other advantages that the pressure has over regular methods of cleaning is that it enables you to penetrate hard to reach areas such as crevices, cracks in walls, pavements, grille works and other intricately laden surfaces like mosaic tiles; and the cleaning, soaping and scrubbing are all accomplished in one motion with the power washer because it utilizes gas force as it applies both water and detergent.

With regards to the use of pressure washers both in commercial and industrial uses are the extra features that some pressure washers have. Like for some jobs that would require warm and hot water, some units have electric heaters or oil fired burner to produce 80Ës F warm to 180Ës F hot water. This feature is best use in areas exposed to oil, grease and other petroleum based chemicals that would be very hard to remove with conventional washing. Coupled with a good detergent, breaking down these slimy and greasy to remove them from surfaces could be achieve more than half the time faster. There are also available accessories could be adapted to a pressure washer to even further save time are the telescoping wand; to reach high walls and surfaces, and do away with setting up ladders and scaffolds to do the work. The water broom is also a new and nifty piece to add to your pressure washer, equipped with 3 to 4 nozzles and acts very much like a broom, you are sure to cover a greater amount of area to clean in less time. Other specialized accessories like the surface cleaners and wet sand blasters which have special cleaning uses to even save more time.

So using a pressure washer and all it add-on features will definitely save you time. With a little bit of common sense, mixing and matching the right accessories and safety, pressure washing will absolutely save you time…. and money.