The house wash, start to finish

Before the trigger: the walk-around

Every professional house wash starts with a five-minute loop around the house, and the loop decides the price and the risk. You are looking for four things: the siding type (vinyl and painted surfaces mean soft wash only, brick tolerates a careful direct rinse of organic growth), the dirt map (which sides carry algae, where the downspout stains run), the hazards (light fixtures, outlets, window seals, a wasp nest under the eave, the $400 landscaped bed on the north wall), and the water source. Photograph the dirt before you touch anything. The before-and-after pair is your marketing department, and the "before" shot must exist.

Tell the homeowner the plan in one sentence, close all windows, and confirm pets are inside. Then pre-rinse: landscaping, bare wood, and doors get clean water before any chemical. This step is not optional courtesy; it is the difference between a live hedge and a dead one.

The wash, in order

The sequence below is the SOP successful operators hand to new hires, and it works on the overwhelming majority of residential siding.

1. Pre-rinse plants and sensitive surfaces with clean water, saturating soil and foliage.
2. Apply the mix from the bottom up, starting on the dirtiest side. Bottom-up matters: soap running down over dry siding leaves streaks, while soap applied over soap keeps the whole wall wet and working. Hit every row of vinyl, or every other row on lightly soiled walls.
3. Dwell 5 to 10 minutes. Watch the green algae gray out and begin to slide. Do not let the wall dry; re-mist if the sun is winning.
4. Spot-treat stubborn growth. Careful higher pressure on brick only, a stronger mix band on gutter lines. Never on vinyl.
5. Rinse from the top down, gutters and soffits first, following each row of siding down, flushing windows thoroughly at the end.
6. Rinse the landscaping again with plenty of clean water.

Section the house: half at a time, or one elevation at a time on large homes. You are managing dwell time and preventing drying, not racing. A solo operator doing a 2,000-square-foot house with downstream injection plans for 60 to 90 minutes on site; with a dedicated soft-wash system and experience, operators report turning the same house in under an hour.

The walkthrough: where the money actually is

The job ends with the homeowner, not the rinse. Walk the perimeter together, point at the clean gutter line, hand them the before-and-after on your phone, and say the two sentences that earn the review: "Are you happy with how this turned out?" and "A Google review helps my small business more than you'd believe; I'll text you the link." Payment happens now, on site, before you pack up. Chasing invoices is a second job; do not start it.

Two upsells belong in the walkthrough, offered once, without pressure: the driveway you are standing on ("The concrete's next; I can do it today while I'm set up, usually $X for this size"), and next spring's return ("I'll reach out in a year; most houses in this neighborhood need it annually"). The first raises today's ticket. The second starts the repeat revenue, and how to keep it compounding comes later in the course.

Concrete is the other half of your first season's revenue, and the technique is completely different.