Spring Cleaning The Exterior of Your Home

Beautiful home showing how clean your home will be when you spring clean it. It has a clean roof, gutters and freshly washed siding.

Spring Cleaning The Exterior of Your Home

The wintertime is finally over, the weather is warming up, and the flowers begin to bloom, we may begin to see the effects this past winter has had on our home. We know that the spring time is the absolute perfect time to get our house back in shape for all those fun summer BBQ’s, activities, and parties. It may seem overwhelming to think about what we may need to accomplish, but we can help you with that.

Let’s start with having a good idea of what is fully involved in the spring cleaning of your home.

Cleaning our roof.

First, we would want to check out the roof. How are the shingles? Do You still have a few years left before needing to replace them completely? Or do you simply just need to remove those stubborn roof stains? Or possibly even to remove mold. Do you need to take out the blower and toss of the few sticks and branches? You may be surprised that a good roof cleaning could just do the trick that you need to make a difference in the appearance of your entire home.

Gutter cleaning.

Second, let’s take a look at the gutters around the home. How full are they? Is the water draining like it is designed to do? Or possibly our gutters could be so full that we need to grab our ladder and try to remove as much of that muck as we can. Sometimes the outside of our gutters also need a good cleaning. Usually a cloth and some spray to help with stains or mold will do the trick.

Power washing

Third, how is the siding of your home? Is there a few things that need to be touched up with paint? We may even discover mold and streaks of dirt on the outside of our homes. The longer that stays on there the harder it will be to remove, so really pay attention to the lower half of your home and stay on top of any stains you may see. Thankfully there is an effective way to clean up the exterior and make it look new again. Power washing is the perfect method of doing just that. When you choose to power wash, it really is a fast and easy way to remove all the unwanted debris and stains that is really aging our home. It can remove the dirt in minutes!

Hard water stains on windows.

Next, we’ll need to look at our windows. We may find that there could be broken window seals that have caused our windows to create moisture in between the glass and will eventually need to be replaced completely. Also, another very common thing to find is the lovely hard water stains that our sprinklers might have left behind. We might think that they are impossible to get rid of, but I will say we can and will have success! Try mixing a solution of dish soap, warm water, and a generous pour of white vinegar. Mix it and then apply to window with an official window cleaning applicator or just a cloth. Leave it on the window for a few minutes and then use a squeegee to remove access water. The vinegar will try its best to work at those stubborn stains. If that doesn’t work, we should hire the professionals to use a professional grade window cleaning blade on the window to remove the remaining spots. It doesn’t scratch or hurt the glass in anyway, It will just do its best at removing those stubborn stains.

Spray for insects.

After we get our roof, siding, and windows all nice and clean we can look for a good reliable company to come and spray for bugs. We all know how bad it can be when the heat comes and all the critters want to make a nice cool home indoors. But by spraying the exterior of your home that will ensure that the majority of the bugs stay outside where they belong.

Concrete stains.

Now that we know our house can be all spruced up, we pull our car out of the garage thinking everything is finally looking good, and only to find see that concrete whether inside the garage or the concrete on the exterior of our home has streaks and stains of rust. Is it really possible to remove? The answer is yes. Just like those stubborn hard water stains on the windows, rust as well can be removed with white vinegar. You will need a bucket of warm water, white vinegar, and a hard nylon bristled brush for the smooth surfaces where you do not wish to remove the top layer of paint or the top layer of paste that will expose the aggregate material beneath. Apply mixture to the stains and let sit for about 5 minutes. Afterwards, slowly rub in a circular motion carefully not rubbing too hard therefore removing the paint. Then rinse with cold water.

With seeing down in writing what we can do to really spruce up the exterior of our homes, we can and will be ready for those fun summer festivities.

June 14, 2017June 14, 2017

What are the different surfaces you can use a power washer on

What are the different surfaces you can use a power washer on?

What a time saver your Power Washer is! A pressure cleaning rig has so many uses that soon it will be your best buddy. Let’s take a look at some surfaces that will definitely save you a back ache and time using a power washer.

Cleaning Your Car

Using the power washer for cleaning your car is super easy, quick and enjoyable that you´ll look forward for the next car wash. Be careful you don´t use the highest pressure nozzle as it can literally take the paint off your car. First, you would wash the car with just water to make sure all the dirt is gone. Don’t forget to aim underneath the car to get all that caked-on dirt. Afterwards, apply car soap yourself or use the soap tip if you have one. Then use the low pressure tip nozzle to take the soap away.

Your Wooden Deck

Your power washer is a great way to clean a wood or composite deck. When you just hosted a barbeque, your deck ends up being sticky from pop, juice, wine and the dessert crumbs are stuck from being stepped on. Who really wants to manually clean that? Leave it to the pressure cleaning rig! It is amazing with wood house sidings, gazebos, stairs, wooden fences and outdoor wooden furniture. If you are planning on re-painting it can help take off the loose paint or help you prepare the surface for a new paint job. Just keep in mind when you just want to clean the surface use a low-pressure nozzle tip. Your Powerful wand can strip off the finish from the wood easily. Also, the water particles can embed themselves further inside the wood that can cause it to bend or rot over time. This is the reason you don´t combine detergent with a high-pressured nozzle when washing wooden surfaces. For a little help power washing your deck in Arlington, give Ecotek a call.

Your Greasy Barbeque Grill

Yes, guys love to take over the grill but do they love cleaning it after? The smell of grilled meat is just amazing as the grease and fat start melting away. That grease can stay in there for a long time if you don´t clean your grill after every use. It’s a huge pain to clean in manually. But the power washer is a life changer. Here’s how to clean your grill. Make sure it is disconnected from the propane tank or a natural gas line. It would be wise to start with a wider nozzle tip (45 degrees) to get the loose grease, grime and fat. Then add a strong degreaser and let it sit there for at least a few minutes. Use a stronger spray to remove the harder stains. As you removed all that grime you can rinse it down back with a wider nozzle tip.

Keep Your Driveway Spotless

There is always a car that ends up leaking a little bit of oil and having oil stains on your driveway looks ugly. Your garage floor, walkways and your driveway can be very difficult to clean. But again, nothing can stop your that high pressure spray. When you use a higher pressure nozzle tip with detergent it can easily get that grease and oil stains leaving your driveway spotless.
Your Swimming Pool
Your pool or your Jacuzzi can easily build up mold during time. This is when buying a power washer that uses hot water will benefit you. If you get a unit that can produce steam you can quickly demolish mold and the surfaces will be microbe-free.
Adaptable to the Weak
Not only does that high pressure setup display mighty acts against strong material, it is considerate to fragile surfaces like glass. Do you have huge windows on the second level? Well your best buddy can be strong enough to take the dirt but gently at the same time. Most of all, it cleans fairly fast on those big windows when using a wide angle nozzle tip.
Perfect for Boats
If you own a boat this s your answer. No doubt it is a lot of work to clean and maintain a boat. You have materials like metal, wood, glass and fiberglass on your boat but with the proper tip it is versatile to clean all those surfaces. Just be aware of what kind of nozzle you should use for each material.
There you have it; a power washer is an amazing tool to own for a homeowner. It saves you a lot of time as it gets the job done for many different surfaces in more than the half amount of time doing it by hand. If it is your first time owning one, read about the other blog on the different types of nozzle tips and its uses so you can fully use this tool to its full potential.

June 11, 2017

Choosing the right power washing nozzle or tip

We have the pressure washer set up, all ready to go, and then we realize all that we have is the machine. Yes, the power washer itself is just 1/2 of what you actually need to get started, it’s only the part that will be pumping a high pressure of water through a wand. What we really need to learn is the correct nozzle we should use, to be the most effective and to achieve the best results.

Here’s a quick look into 5 different types of universal power washing nozzles to help clean any surface, whether its concrete, siding or a wood deck. It can be tricky to learn the different spray tips, but we tried to make it as simple as possible- even color coated.

RED :
Here we have the red tip. Which is a 0 degree extremely concentrated spray. You really do have to be careful using this tip, because it can damage sensitive or soft surfaces. Do not use on wood or painted surfaces unless you are trying to remove the paint. It has the power to scratch some surfaces due to the high intensity so using it on siding is NOT recommended unless it is several stories high and you’re using this tip to reach the third story.

YELLOW:
Now the next tip we use, disperses out water with a 15 degree spray pattern. This is best used for concrete, and also used when removing mildew stains. Keep in mind when using this tip, to achieve the best results we choose not to use it with chemicals or detergents, because it can eventually lead to the chemicals being embedded in small crevices.

GREEN:
This tip has a 25 degree spray pattern. Fast and easy to use for large areas! It works really well on vinyl siding from a moderate distance, decks, walkways, patios, sweeping leaves and if used correctly, you can use it when cleaning outdoor furniture. Ca

WHITE:
One of the most diverse nozzles is the white tip. It has a spray pattern of 40 degrees. It can be used to clean delicate surfaces. Such as, aluminum siding, wood, vinyl, and vehicles. This is one of the most commonly used nozzles and can be used on vinyl siding at closer distances.

BLACK:
Lastly, we have the black tip. It has a spray pattern of 65 degrees and sprays with a very gentle stream. Power washers usually use this tip when needing to prepare or presoak the surface for the official cleaning.
Knowing exactly what type of tip to use is crucial. Potentially a short task could turn into being a longer one if the wrong nozzle is used. Keeping this color coated cheat sheet will help ensure efficiency and effectiveness for any job.