Why DIY Pressure Washing is a Bad Idea
“Pressure washing looks easy! I don’t need a pro to help me. I’m sure that I can do it myself.”
Not so fast! Before you dive into DIY pressure washing, notice that all those articles reassuring you that pressure washing is easy to tackle on your own have paragraphs of fine print. You’ll notice that these gung-ho DIY pages will warn you about the serious risk of injury, the many potential complications, and will include lots of cautionary tales. They’ll list the ways you could cause serious damage to your home and even the many, many parts of a house you should NEVER attempt to pressure wash.
As the Triangle’s pressure washing professionals, we’d advise you to approach DIY pressure washing with a healthy sense of skepticism. Pressure washing is a serious undertaking with real consequences for your home and your safety. Before you proceed, we encourage you to read on so you’ll understand the dangers of performing pressure washing on your own. At Fairway Home Detailing, we want to empower you to make decisions you feel good about. Whether you decide to hire professionals like our trained personnel to pressure wash your home, or you decide to go it alone, we want to equip you with the information you need to make the best possible choice for you and your family.
Hazards Ahead – Proceed with Caution
When high-pressure hoses, ladders, and chemicals are involved in a project, you’ll want to tread carefully. Pressure washing is a serious business, and you may be putting yourself and your home’s exterior at risk. Before you dive into doing it yourself, consider the following.
Water Pressure is Everything
As opposed to the comparatively light pressure provided by a garden hose, a gas-powered pressure washer is extremely powerful. The average garden hose provides about 40 to 60 psi (pounds per square inch) of water pressure. According to Consumer Reports, the average gas-powered pressure washer provides 2,000 to 2,800 psi.
If you’re not used to handling a pressure washer, you can chip wood, damage, siding, chisel concrete, and even dent cars. Imperfect aim can send debris flying and cause serious injury. Eye injuries caused by debris from pressure washing are not unheard of.
At Fairway Home Detailing, our experienced personnel is carefully trained to handle the immense power of pressure washers. We know how to get a thorough clean without damaging your home’s exterior, injuring ourselves, or injuring others. This is one of the greatest benefits of hiring a professional power washing company- you won’t be risking your home and your property, and you won’t be putting yourself or others at risk.
Don’t Put Your Lawn through Chemical Warfare!
If you’re proud of your lawn and landscaping, we can’t emphasize enough that it is critical to choose the right detergents for a pressure washing job. You may think that any old chemical combination will do the trick, but your yard might pay the price for the wrong choice of detergent.
At Fairway Home Detailing, we carefully choose citrus-based, environmentally-friendly detergents that won’t harm your greenery or expose your family to harmful chemicals. We know that using harsh chemicals isn’t good for houses or the people who live in them. That’s why we choose products we’ve tried and tested over and over and have proven safe and effective.
Getting an Effective and Efficient Wash
Let’s face it: professional pressure washers will get phenomenal results that can’t be replicated by the average DIY-er. And that’s okay! We’ve been in business since 1999, so we’ve learned all the best ways to get a gentle, yet thorough wash.
We carefully tailor each pressure washing job to the clients’ needs. We’ll consider what degree of water pressure will best suit different sections of your home, which detergents will best suit the home’s construction and landscaping, and how we can get your home thoroughly clean the first time. If you want to save money, time, and hassle, a professional pressure wash may be the best option for you.
If You Decide to DIY Pressure Wash
If you’ve weighed the pros and cons and have decided that you still want to do your pressure washing yourself, we strongly advise that you keep the following in mind:
- Make sure you invest in safety goggles, protective gloves, and sturdy shoes- you simply can’t be too careful when the potential for flying debris is in the air.
- NEVER try to “rinse” your feet or hands with a pressure washer.
- If you’re going to use an electric pressure washer, proceed with extreme caution: water conducts electricity!
- Choose your detergents carefully. Toxic chemicals can run into the sewer system, into your yard, and penetrate your siding.
Call the Pressure Washing Pros
If you’re ready to leave pressure washing to the professionals, please get in touch with us via our website or over the phone. We’d love to show you how transformative a professional pressure washing job can be!