How to Easily Clean Many Types of Exterior Siding with Simple and Cheap Chemicals

Cleaning exterior siding can be a more difficult process than you want to handle on any given Sunday. It can be a real pain in the backside depending on the type of siding you have and how high off the ground you have to get in order to properly clean your siding.

Vinyl and aluminum siding are great candidates for using a pressure washer to clean them providing you make sure to test and set the pressure washer at a level which will cause no damage to the siding. It is always wise to test in a hidden spot so that you can be certain there will be no surprises when you get started on the job for real.

Stucco walls are best cleaned with a dilute solution of Trisodium Phosphate and bleach in warm water using a soft bristled scrub brush. The formula which I have always used is one cup of TSP and one ounce of bleach into one gallon of warm water. With safety gloves and glasses on wet down the walls lightly then apply small amount of cleaner using the soft brush. The siding will be lightly scrubbed by hand using a soft bristled brush until the siding looks as clean as you expected it to. You may have to repeat this scrubbing but I suggest you let it dry before deciding.

If you have wood siding such as cedar then you can use either technique mentioned above with good results from each providing you do not use a jet tip or too much pressure from the pressure washer on the wood siding. The same cleaning method that applies to stucco would be perfect for wood surfaces as well. Use the TSP solution with bleach and water to scrub away the dirt and grime. And after it dries either stain seal or paint whichever siding material it is that you just cleaned. Make sure the siding is completely dry before proceeding to the painting and staining stage.

Brick is easily power washed but like the others you need to be careful with using too high of a pressure around the edges of windows and doors as you can peel the caulking right out and leave a leak point for water intrusion whenever it rains. If the red or yellow brick is dull then the TSP and bleach is going to help brighten that surface up quite nicely. Remember too you may need to scrub these siding jobs more than once to get all the dirt and grime off.

It is a wise idea to cover any vegetation under the siding with a sheet of clear plastic that can be reused or tossed. You need to be careful to not get the cleaning chemical on your clothes in your eyes and hair and keep it away from things like air conditioner condensers. This would be that weird shaped gray or green box with a large fan in the top of it sitting next to the house with the two copper hoses going into the wall plus an electrical connection.

There is no replacement for the elbow grease that I mentioned earlier. I have found that some of the time saving devices like a pressure washer really are not. There have been times when I could have finished the job in half the time if I did not have the pressure washer on the job.

As soon as you get going there is always something to deal with, clogged nozzles, out of soap, no gas in tank etc. etc. What it comes down to for me is that I am not dependent upon these "time savers" and I can always walk away and go back to the manual cleaning version anytime.