Soft washing across Sydney
Soft washing in Sydney. Less pressure, more time, and the growth dies instead of moving.
Most of what turns a Sydney house green or black is alive: mould, algae and lichen. Blast it and you knock the top off and take some paint with it. Soft washing puts a cleaning solution on at low pressure, gives it time to kill the growth, then rinses it away. It is how we wash every wall, every tile roof, every Colorbond roof and every timber deck we clean.
The five surfaces that get soft washed, and why each one does
Each of these fails in its own way under high pressure. The method is the same for all five. The reason is different every time.
Render and painted walls
Paint and render are a skin. High pressure finds the hairline crack and the loose edge and lifts them. A soft wash kills the growth on the skin and rinses it off without testing how well the paint is stuck.
Priced as: House wash
Weatherboard and cladding
Boards overlap so that rain runs down and away. A lance aimed upward drives water behind them. Soft washing works with the laps, top to bottom, at a pressure a garden hose would recognise.
Priced as: House wash
Concrete and terracotta tile roofs
Tiles sit on each other under their own weight. Pressure pushes water through the gaps and into the ceiling of a roof with no sarking. Tile is soft washed here and only soft washed.
Priced as: Roof clean
Colorbond and metal roofs
The coating is what protects the steel. Soft washing removes what is growing on it and leaves the finish alone, which is the only outcome worth paying for on a metal roof.
Priced as: Roof clean
Timber decks
Pressure raises the grain and leaves furred, striped boards that grey faster afterwards. A soft clean lifts the grime and the mould and leaves the timber flat.
Priced as: Deck clean
And one that never is
Fibro and cement sheet. Not at low pressure, not with a brush, not at all. If it might be asbestos, we stop and say so.
What soft washing costs here, line by line
Soft washing is not a separate charge on top of a job. It is how the job is done, so the price is the price of the job. Every figure includes GST and comes off the one rate card. A tile roof is the exception: roof, concrete or terracotta tile is quoted after a look, because tile roofs vary too much for a headline figure to mean anything.
Where the solution goes after it has done its job
A soft wash uses a cleaning solution, and the NSW EPA position is plain: wash water must not enter the stormwater system. A biodegradable label does not change that. So downpipes are blocked or turned before a roof is washed, drains near a wall are covered, and the run off is contained and taken away.
Under the Sydney Water Water Wise Guidelines, washing walls, windows, gutters and roofing is permitted at any time with a trigger nozzle hose or high pressure equipment. That is about using the water. Where the water ends up is a different rule set, and we work to both.
Insured, with the certificate of currency available on request, and a written scope before anything starts. Five things worth checking, on us or on anybody else.
Soft washing questions
What is soft washing?
Cleaning at low pressure with a cleaning solution that is left to work, then rinsed off. The chemistry kills mould, algae and lichen at the root and the rinse carries it away. High pressure tries to blast the same growth off and usually leaves the root behind.
How much does soft washing cost in Sydney?
It depends on what is being washed, because soft washing is the method rather than the job. A single storey house wash is $549, a double storey $899, a metal or Colorbond roof from $899 and a timber deck up to 30 square metres $349, all including GST. A tile roof is priced after a look.
Is soft washing safe for my garden?
Garden beds under a wall are soaked with water before the wash and rinsed again after it, so the solution does not sit on a leaf and dry there. Anything delicate gets covered. Run off is contained and kept out of the stormwater drain, which is a separate rule from what is good for the plants.
Will the mould come back?
Eventually, on the side of the house that gets no sun. Soft washing kills the growth rather than knocking off the top of it, so it takes longer to return than it does after a high pressure clean. How long depends on shade, aspect and the weather, and we do not put a number on it.
Do you soft wash fibro?
No. Cement sheet that may contain asbestos is not washed by us at any pressure, soft or high. SafeWork NSW prohibits high pressure water on asbestos material and its guidance is to have a suspected sheet assessed by a professional, not cleaned.
When is high pressure the right tool instead?
Concrete with oil, grease or chewing gum on it. Those are hot water jobs, where heat and pressure do the work that chemistry cannot. A wall, a roof or a deck almost never is.
Tell us what is going green
A wall, a roof or a deck, the suburb, and a photograph from each side. The smallest attended job is $249, and most soft wash jobs are well past it.