Brick pavers winding through decorative landscape plants or patios surrounded by shrubbery and flowers add a decorative element to any setting. Whether your pavers are used as a walkway through your garden, a patio, on your pool deck, or driveway, your pavers are bound to lose their luster over time. Your roof or house siding may also be showing signs of wear with added grime, dirt, algae, or moss.
Using Cates Pressure Washing service is a great way to get dirt and grime off of your home and restore it to its intended beauty. With each blast, caked-up dirt from the elements melts away. And while the chemicals used in pressure washing are safe for your home, the plants surrounding it are a different story. Many of these chemicals can do permanent damage to your plants and, ultimately, kill them.
It is very important that when you pressure wash your patio, driveway, or paved walkway, you take the necessary precautions to protect those plants that you have worked very hard to establish around your home.
Protecting Your Plants Before Pressure Washing
It Is important to protect your plants when you plan to power wash. If you’re planning to enhance the curb appeal of your home with exterior cleaning, the flowers and bushes should be a priority, too.
Professional power washing companies such as Cates Pressure Washing use a soft wash method that relies on a chemical solution to kill and eliminate mildew, algae, and moss on your home, rather than high pressure to simply knock it off. Any chemicals used on or around your home can have harmful effects on your plants if they are not used correctly.
This is another reason Why You Should Hire a Professional Pressure Washing Company. Whether you are doing it yourself or hiring a professional company, be sure that these steps are put into place to protect your greenery.
Seven Steps To Protect Your Plants While Pressure Washing
- Water: Before your professional power washing company comes to clean your roof or your home, you should water the plants and shrubs around your property. Dry and thirsty plants will soak up all the liquid they find. This means if your plants have not been watered, they may soak up the chemical solutions that run off your home during the cleaning process.
- Redirect the Runoff: Consider bagging bag up downspouts and collecting the runoff from roof washes to ensure there is no pooling of chemicals around your garden. Another option is to redirect the runoff with hoses. However, you need to be aware that any grassy area that the water collects will likely die if not watered and rinsed well afterward. Redirecting the water to the middle of your yard would not be a great idea.
- Apply a Neutralizing Agent: There are neutralizing agents on the market that can be applied before the home or roof wash that will help to balance out any chemicals used on your home. If you are washing your home by yourself, be sure to read the directions of the neutralizing agent carefully before applying it to your plants.
- Use Detergent Instead of Beach: A detergent-based pressure wash is more environmentally friendly than bleach as it is typically diluted to a 10:1 water-to-detergent ratio. This makes it less harsh on plants. Caution is required when using detergent as well. Detergent can leave brown spots on plants. This can be alleviated by both watering plants before pressure washing and rinsing them afterward.
- Rinse: When your house or roof wash is complete, be sure to rinse your plants thoroughly to remove any cleaning solution that may have landed on the leaves of your greenery.
- Cover Your Plants: Some sites and companies will recommend that you place a tarp or cover over your plants to protect them. However, covering plants can cause more harm than good if used incorrectly. When you cover your plants for too long, it cuts off their air supply and kills them.
- Uncover Your Plants As Soon As Possible: If you choose to use a tarp to cover your plants, it is imperative that you only cover the plants near the section you are actively spraying. Then be sure to uncover the plants and move the tarp to the next spot when you move. This will require some additional time and effort, but it is the only way to ensure that your plants are not covered for too long.
Cates Pressure Washing Can Protect Your Plants When Pressure Washing
You may be considering pressure washing your home yourself; however, you should consider utilizing the services of a professional to take care of this task for you. A professional pressure washing service has the experience to clean your home and protect your plants while pressure washing.
Cates Pressure Washing has served eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina since 1997. We specialize in residential, commercial, and new construction job site pressure washing, including no-pressure roof cleaning, brick cleaning, concrete pressure washing, concrete sealing, deck cleaning, and other various pressure washing services.
We offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all work performed, whether a residential homeowner or commercial contractor. We provide a free test cleaning to show our customers what type of professional job they can expect.
We are located at 2291 Enterprise Rd., Piney Flats, TN. You can reach us in Tennessee at 423-557-5605 or North Carolina at 828-808-6582, or online at Cates Pressure Washing.