My husband and I recently pressure washed our house ourselves - no judgement please lol. Someone lent us their pressure washer so we decided to take it on. Unforunately, I don’t quite think I knew what I was doing and now this is the result… is this fixable without painting? We will be painting in the next few months, but until then, this is driving me CRAZY! Any advice is appreciated. Thanks! Will add photos below.
Tell us your process of how you washed your home. What machine, did you have any type of way of measuring how much pressure was actually being applied, what chemicals, what mix ratio, how did you apply the chemicals, how long did they sit on the surface, did it dry before you rinsed it, how well did you rinse how many days after was the photo you’ve shown above, what did the siding look like before? I think that those are the questions that will get us started into what happened.
Doesn’t matter, not fixable. Just get it repainted.
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someone has to clean it first tho…still.
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You ruined your house’s paint. If that isn’t a textured coating on there, then you will be hiring a stucco person too (hard to tell from pics). I don’t have a mechanics certificate or training, don’t really know what I’m doing, but I think I will extend the rear on my bike today. What could go wrong?
That house looks tiny in the photos, that is a 1-2 hour job at most and probably about $212 maybe 265 (tax included). Looks about double wide sized in photos.
I used a Ryobi 2000 PSI pressure cleaner with Ecolab pressure washing solution. Diluted it down with water per the instructions. This photo was taken about a month after cleaning. It didn’t sit very long on the surface, rinsed it off after soaping it down. The siding looked a little bit splotchy before, but nothing like it is now. It has gotten significantly worse since cleaning. This house hasn’t been painted I’m assuming since the early 2000’s. Thank you for the help!
I was assuming the paint was ruined as well, but I’ve heard so many different things from different people so I don’t know what is accurate anymore… someone recently told me it could be from the algae sitting and it stained after pressure washing, but I don’t know. The house is stucco and a little over 1,500 sq ft.
I made the mistake of going up to down when pressure washing. I learned prior that is what you’re not supposed to do. Just curious if I go back and pressure clean from bottom up if this will be fixed? Like I said, I’m planning on painting in a few months, but it just looks so awful trying to fix it up a little before then!
There’s the problem, you used pressure. Look up the term ‘soft washing’, the chems do the work and it’s a high volume, low pressure fan rinse.
as a guy who used to paint for a living, and still does it from time to time, dirt/algea doesn’t ruin most paints. The sun ruins most paints. You can clean dirty paint and it looks decent (not new) when done. You can deoxidize some paints, and some paints don’t react well to that. Some paints, depending on their pigment makeup, don’t react well to chemicals. That is why professionals always test the product in an inconspicuous area. There is a bit of knowledge required to do it right.
I’m more concerned for your home than anything else. The paint is a moisture barrier, and keeps moisture from entering what might be stucco/concrete/eifs. I can’t tell from the pics. Concrete and stucco both absorb/allow water to pass through them. If it is stucco you need to get it painted as soon as possible or you may be out a lot of money down the road. They make paint rollers that will leave that trail on the wall, so I can’t tell what you have - stucco/eifs/cement & paint.
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