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Here's another great tip from BobVila.com.
You can get several years’ worth of grime off your deck and your home’s exterior in an hour with a pressure washer. Whether you buy or rent, it’s a great tool to have.
But go easy. Pressure washing with more than 1,200 psi is useful for stripping loose and flaking paint, but it can easily damage your siding. For cleaning, volume is more important than pressure.
When using a pressure washer, stand several feet from the house and work from the top down. Use a wide-angle spray nozzle and keep the spray at about 30 degrees from the surface to avoid leaving marks. Narrow nozzles and high pressure at a right angle to the surface will damage your siding and can hurt you, too.
Always wear safety goggles and protective clothing when you’re pressure washing. Unless it’s specified by the decking or siding manufacturer, avoid using chlorine bleach, which can be harmful to wood surfaces. It’ll turn cedar and redwood black, and your plants won’t like it either. Instead, spray any mildewed areas with an oxygen-based bleach solution or other natural cleanser to loosen the grime before pressure washing.
If all of this seems like a lot of work, your local pressure-washing service can clean and finish a standard deck for $200-$300 in a couple of hours.
Find out more at BobVila.com:
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