House Soft Wash in Fort Worth
The north wall of your house is going green and the south wall has gone chalky. Gulf humidity keeps the shaded elevations damp enough for algae and mildew to live on. On the sunny side it's the opposite problem: UV chalks the paint or the vinyl itself, and pollen and road film bake into that worn surface. A house soft wash takes off both, at about 100 PSI, so we're not driving water behind your siding.
How we do it
Chemistry does the work here, not pressure. A driveway takes 3,000 PSI and up. Your siding takes a wide fan tip at a small fraction of that, closer to a garden hose than to a pressure washer. The mix is sodium hypochlorite cut to around one percent for siding, well under roof strength, with a surfactant in it so it clings to a vertical wall long enough to work instead of running straight into the flowerbed. It kills the growth through instead of knocking the top layer off, then gets rinsed before it can dry on the wall. Strength changes with the substrate. Vinyl and fiber cement take the standard mix. Painted wood and the soft lime mortar on older Fairmount brick get a weaker one and a longer rinse. Stucco gets neither pressure nor a long dwell. Lichen is the exception to all of it. It usually needs a second application, and where it's been sitting on painted trim for years it can come away with paint that had already failed underneath it. We'll show you those spots on the walk instead of letting you find them afterward. Siding, soffits, fascia, gutter faces, trim, shutters, columns, and porch ceilings are all in scope.
The visit, step by step
- 1
Walk the elevations first
North and east walls are where the growth actually lives, so that's where we start. We check what the walls are made of and find the sprinkler heads that have been spraying the house. Mix strength gets set off both. Vinyl, Hardie, painted cedar, stucco, and 1920s brick don't get the same thing.
- 2
Wet the beds, bag the fixtures
Shrubs and beds get soaked before any chlorine goes up and stay wet until we're done. Light fixtures, outlets, doorbells, and cameras get bagged or taped. Windows and doors get checked shut.
- 3
Apply low, bottom to top
The mix goes on from the bottom up so it can't run down dry siding and leave streaks. Low pressure through a wide fan tip, no turbo nozzle, nothing aimed up under a vinyl lap or into a brick weep hole. Then five to ten minutes of dwell, worked on the shaded side or early in the day so a Texas afternoon doesn't dry it before the rinse.
- 4
Rinse top down
Full rinse from the roofline down: walls, then glass, then the beds and the concrete underneath. Anything still holding on gets a second application, not more pressure.
- 5
Finish on the north wall, in the same light
We end where we started, on the north elevation, so you can see the before and after on the same wall in the same light. Webs and mud dauber nests come off the soffits and eave corners on the way past.
Why it matters here
Algae and mildew hold moisture against the wall. A north elevation never gets direct sun, so it dries slowly after the May and October rains and stays damp most of the year, and paint film and caulk fail years before they should. Lichen is worse. It puts rhizines down into the finish and pulls paint with it when it finally releases. The sunny side fails the other direction. UV chalks and oxidizes the paint or the vinyl itself, and pollen from the oaks in spring and summer road film bond into that degraded surface. Past a certain point chlorine won't lift them at all. That's the difference between washing a house and repainting one. Wash it once a year and it's one visit. Leave it four or five years and you're pricing paint, or siding.
Signs it's time
- ✦The north side of the house is a visibly different color than the south side. Green-black in the shade, chalky where the sun hits.
- ✦Gray-green fuzz in the soffit corners and along the eaves, worst under a tree that overhangs the roofline.
- ✦Dark vertical drip lines running down the siding below gutter seams and downspout elbows.
- ✦A white crusty arc on the brick or lower siding, exactly the shape of a sprinkler head's throw.
- ✦Crusty gray-green patches on painted trim you can lift with a fingernail. That's lichen, and it's already into the paint.
What it costs
A one-time house soft wash starts at $400 and goes to about $600, set by wall area and how many stories. It's also part of the Homestead Plan, scheduled in June, so plan members don't pay for it separately.
Questions
Isn't this just pressure washing my house?
No, and pressure washing a house is how siding gets ruined. High pressure drives water up under vinyl laps and into brick weep holes, where it sits in the wall cavity. It gouges cedar, lifts paint off wood, opens hairline cracks in stucco, and cuts old lime mortar out of the joints on pre-war brick. It also only strips the top layer of growth, so the wall greens back up in a few months. A soft wash runs about 100 PSI and lets the chemistry kill the growth instead.
Will it kill my landscaping?
It can, if nobody preps the beds. Diluted sodium hypochlorite burns foliage when it's allowed to dry on a leaf, so the beds get soaked before the first drop hits the wall and rinsed the whole time we work. Water takes the mix below the strength where it matters, and what lands breaks down into salt and water. Boxwoods, hollies, and crepe myrtles planted tight against the foundation are the ones to watch, and they're the first thing we wet. Tell us if something in the bed is new or was expensive and we'll tarp it too.
How long before it looks like that again?
In North Texas, one to two years on the shaded elevations and longer on the ones that bake. Humidity keeps north and east walls damp, so growth returns there first, and anything under a live oak or crowded by a fence comes back faster than open wall. That's why the whole-house wash lands in June on the Homestead Plan, once a year.
Will it take the white spots off my brick?
No. Chlorine does nothing to mineral deposits. What you're looking at is hard-water scale from sprinkler overspray, and sometimes efflorescence, salt the repeated soaking has pulled out of the brick itself. Scale needs an acid masonry wash, which is different chemistry and a separate step, and it gets tested on a hidden patch first because acid can change the color of some brick and stone. Efflorescence will often come off dry with a stiff brush. Either way the permanent fix is turning that sprinkler head away from the house.
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