I pressure washed an older house on Monday, and when I was done it looked good and clean. Today the homeowner decided to do a white glove inspection and noticed dirty marks when he wiped the siding. I used an outdoor bleach through the injector and rinsed thoroughly. There was no visible sign of dirt. Do I just need to wash the house again? Did I not rinse enough? The homeowner said he last cleaned the house in 2015.
Looks like a combination of oxidized paint and road soot. I run into it a lot near high traffic homes. The only thing that I’ve found to solve the issue is scrubbing with a soft brush. It will pass the white glove test after a good scrubbing but may still have some signs of dirt/soot embedded. I do the front entryway scrubbing at no extra cost. Anything past that is an upcharge. If they arent accepting of that I offer a discount and explain the difference in time it would take to scrub the entire property vs what they hired you to do. It’s best to identify it up front but if your estimating without a visit there’s no identifying it.
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Water sprayed on a house can’t get rid of stubborn dirt. Rinse all you want, there will still be something to wipe off.
Imagine softwashing your car after a few years in the city.
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I was wondering if it could possibly be paint oxidation. It’s not a real busy street, but if it’s been 4 yrs since the last cleaning there could be road soot. I always do an in-person estimate, but how do you know this problem exists if the house is already dirty? I’ve been doing this a while and either I’ve gotten lucky by not running this problem, or either the homeowner has never done gone around wiping the house after a cleaning.
He’s wipping old crappy paint off his house. You can’t make paint new just clean the dirt off it.
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Any construction near by? Dust settles quick
No. It’s an old established neighborhood. I believe the house hasn’t been painted or cleaned in several years, and the customer is expecting it to look brand new. I should have set some expectations before taking this on. Lesson learned.
Look like some Oxidation and maybe a bit of soot left behind, But it’s almost impossible to get rid of that tin layer of grime and it’s almost always invisible unless you run your finger across
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I have never had a customer do a white glove check. Hope I don’t in the future haha.
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Update…Back at this house to wash again. Not sure how to get it any cleaner but part of what we do to keep the customer happy and avoid negative reviews.
So what was the result?
The house looks great! Glad it worked out at the end!
Thank you! I appreciate everyone’s input. This was my first post and glad to be a part of the forum.
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