[Music]
pressure washing is one of the most cost
effective and efficient ways to keep
your home looking like new built up dirt
grime mildew and mold can be removed in
a fraction of the time it would take to
scrub it by hand or just use a garden
hose
today's goal with pressure washing is
actually to prep this house for a fresh
coat of paint
so grab some safety goggles and clothes
that you don't mind getting a little wet
because I'm gonna walk you through how
to pressure wash a house the right way
I'll give you all the tools you need
tips safety precautions so that by the
end of this video you're confident to
pressure wash your house and have it
looking sparkly and clean like new a
pressure washer is a way to amp up your
garden hose it has a motor that
increases the psi of the water if you
think of it like cars your garden hose
is kind of like a three cylinder
hatchback and your pressure washer is a
super-fast sports car and speaking of
cars don't ever use a power washer to
wash your car a lot of people do that
it's a terrible idea it can really
damage the paint pressure washers can
clean houses decks patios driveways
sheds it's a great tool to have to help
with variety of uses around the house
I'm going to show you how to pressure
wash this house the right way and avoid
some common mistakes alright so we are
using a craftsman thirty two hundred psi
gas-powered pressure washer for this
project there's a lot of different
options out there for pressure washers
they have some really good electric ones
cordless options and great gas options
as well for this project and our
purposes we're going with the pretty
heavy-duty gas-powered look at the PSI
rating when choosing a pressure washer
psi means pounds per square inch the
higher the PSI the greater the force of
the water a typical garden hose has
about 40 psi
not strong enough to do heavy duty
cleaning on your house but if you take
that garden hose and hook it up to a
pressure washer it can easily increase
your psi by over fifty times this model
has a PSI rating of 3200 which means
it's about 75 times more powerful than a
typical garden hose pressure washers
also use up 80% less water than a garden
hose powerful and efficient so we're
gonna walk through kind of some of the
features and how this bad boy works
basically what we have here is this is
where our gas is going to go and then we
have our on/off switch and then we also
have our choke for the guy
and then the gas fuel line for turning
that on and off this is an extra added
safety feature that keeps fuel from
running through okay so first thing we
need to do is put some gas in it because
we're working with a gas powered so with
the gas power engine you want to be
cautious of a few things one is you
don't want to run out of gas
if you do that can cause vapor lock and
you don't want that when this runs it's
gonna run hot so you want to make sure
that you're not refueling it when it's
hot you want to allow it to cool down so
in the front of your pressure washer
there's gonna be two hose nozzles we're
gonna be using two hoses for this
project one is your input hose which is
your regular garden hose that you
already probably have and the other is
our high-powered hose that's connected
to the pressure washer it gets connected
to the front and then also here to the
wand so you're going to put a tip onto
the end of your wand and each tip has a
different purpose so it's really
important to make sure you know what
each tip does and then know what surface
you're about to be working on you'll
want to select the best tip that will
clean without damaging your surface test
the tips on a section of your exterior
to see what works best
choosing the right tip for the job is
extremely important using too much
pressure can damage the surface and
beyond pink is a low pressure soap
detergent nozzle use this when applying
detergents for your cleaning projects
white is the 40-degree nozzle it's a
wider fan of water less pressure
indirect spots best for surfaces that
are softer and more prone to being
damaged yellow is the 15 degree tip it's
typically used for surface prep such as
removing dirt mildew or paint and can be
used on most surfaces red is a zero
Degree tip be careful with this one it
delivers a very concentrated stream of
water and highest PSI it could damage
softer surfaces
this house is in the middle of a
renovation so there's some unpainted
surfaces missing trim but luckily we're
not dealing with any lead paint
don't pressure wash your house if it's
painted with lead paint as this can be
very hazardous if your house was painted
prior to 1978 or you suspect it might
have lead paint it's best to let a
professional do an inspection and make
recommendations it's really important
that you know what type of house
material you're dealing with as it will
impact the way you pressure wash how
much pressure to use the tips you use so
John what do we have on this house so we
have a block house foundation here and
then we have wood up at the top we got
brick out front and we also have vinyl
windows so we're covering all the bases
so all of those are safe for pressure
washing
now before you ever start pressure
washing you want to take a good look and
inspect all the surfaces of the home
we've looked around here and we found a
few things that we're gonna need to take
care of first there's a pretty good rust
stain out front so we're gonna need to
give that some special attention there's
a bit of just like kind of dirt rubbed
in there's loose dirt and debris and
then there's also even an area where
some vines have grown up onto the house
also went around and clipped away any of
the bushes or greens that were up
against the house or just pulled them
away this is an area that can be really
prone to staining so you want to make
sure that you have full access and can
pressure wash there as well also really
important when you're inspecting your
home look for areas where water could
possibly get in and make sure you
protect those we put plastic around some
of our exterior lights we wrapped up our
doorbell we put duct tape over our
outlets also when were pressure washing
we're gonna make sure to avoid any
window casings any caulking areas and
the edges of doors we don't want water
to get into the interior of the home and
custom leaks so now in this area we have
a lot of exterior utilities and these
are weatherproof
but just to be careful we're not really
gonna pressure wash anywhere in this
area we don't really need to wrap all of
these up they are used to taking the
elements but we're just gonna steer
clear of all of this area so this is a
serious power tool and I'm sure you have
some professional safety tips for me it
may seem simple but we got to be careful
because we are dealing with engines and
we are dealing with a 1 has a lot of PSI
to it so if you think of like a nail gun
you're gonna get that same recoil so
you're definitely gonna wanna make sure
you have your ID
and you definitely don't want to be
aiming it at anybody and you want to be
smart and then the big thing is is you
don't want to stand on a ladder when
you're using it's just because there is
so much recoil so there's some ways that
we can resolve that but we'll get to
that later and this isn't quite as much
about safety but guys you're gonna get
wet this isn't a business casual type of
event make sure you're wearing some old
clothes that you don't mind getting wet
for this house it's going to be a
two-step process
first what we're going to do is use the
pressure washer to apply a cleaner and
then we're gonna come back with the
pressure washer switch up the tip and
pressure wash the entire thing the soap
we're gonna start from the bottom up and
then for the pressure washer we're gonna
start from the top down how about I
attach the hose you loaded up a cleaner
all right deal and we're just using a
basic kind of all-purpose cleaner this
will work really well in this particular
instance because we have a combination
of block wood and brick so it's very
all-purpose this is actually a plant
safe cleaner so it's not really gonna do
any damage to the bushes and trees
around the house but just to be on the
safer side we're also gonna spritz them
down with water just to make sure that
they're not absorbing too much of the
cleaner from the ground but what I've
done is I've turned off the power washer
so basically the waters just bypassing
the engine and now we have low pressure
coming through here to definitely don't
want to do this with the engine on that
would cause a catastrophe it will be a
plant catastrophe so the first tip we're
gonna be using is our soap tip because
we're gonna start with our cleaner
all right cleaners in so John why don't
you show us how we go about starting our
pressure washer first thing we want to
do is turn our fuel control on then
we're going to pull our choke out and
then put our ignition switch to on and
then we'll give it one pull safety first
got me on that one we'll give it one
pull and then you're gonna wait for it
to start like sounding like it's choking
a little bit and then you're gonna push
the choke back in and then you're good
to go
okay with this wand there's a safety on
here and you want to make sure that you
engage the safety and then pull the
trigger when I'm applying my cleaner I'm
gonna start from the bottom and work my
way up to the top start no less than a
foot away because you kind of want to
make sure you have the right amount of
pressure and see how your surface
responds at first and you're gonna work
in just nice even back and forth strokes
basically the same application even
though we're starting with our cleaner
as when we are actually power washing
this tip here is very low pressure and
it's to apply the cleaner now the
interesting thing is if I swap this to a
pressure washing tip the soap will not
come out as you can tell working from
bottom up if I work top down we could
potentially have some streaking issues
now I'm gonna work in this whole section
get the soap on I don't want to let the
soap dry and then I'm gonna switch to a
pressure washing attachment to my
40-degree and then give it a good rinse
alright I've reached about as much as I
can with the standard sized wand so John
has the extension wand which actually
extends to 18 feet and will allow us to
get all the way at the top without using
a ladder which isn't very safe now in
order to swap between the two we need to
shut our water off again I'm gonna kind
of drain this out make sure there's not
a lot of pressure here okay
and then remove the soap tip from here
and we'll put it on to the longer one
and then I'm gonna disconnect my
high-pressure hose and then we're just
gonna put our Quick Connect right on to
the end
great loaded and now we'll turn the
water back on
all right we have fully soaked the top
and now we're gonna switch this out
while we have our extension wand and I'm
putting on my 40 degree has the widest
fan it's actually the most common like
multi-purpose one our surface is still
wept and we want to get this pressure
washed right away
now for this John's gonna start at the
top and work his way down that way any
dirt that's being knocked down isn't
falling on a clean surface
[Music]
now with this I should mention that
we'll start out further back but
depending on how our surface is handling
the pressure and how hard the dirt is
stick them off we may end up in a little
bit closer for some hard-to-get area
okay so the first side of the house is
done and before we start to really
tackle the power washing on the front we
clearly have a bit of an issue that we
need to take care of here what we're
dealing with is a rusting from an old
irrigation system we don't feel like
pressure washing alone will take care of
that so if we don't remove the rust the
new paint job will not adhere to the
brick so we've got to take care of this
the right way so this is a rust aid and
this is going to help eliminate any of
the stains that have accumulated over
the years
and we're just gonna apply that using a
pump sprayer okay so to do this John is
working from the bottom up it makes
sense to work all the way down and
across starting from the bottom so that
way the chemical isn't dripping down
kind of rinsing itself off once this
sets up for a little bit we'll leave it
come back check on it and we'll rinse it
off and you always want to make sure to
read your specific label for safety
precautions this is a serious cleaner so
you want to make sure that you're
following their steps exactly alright
this has had some time to set up and now
I'm gonna pressure wash it off I am
using the 40 degree tip it'll do a
really good job on this brick with brick
you don't want to go too powerful it
could get in between and corrode away
the mortar so 40 will be perfect for
this all right now we applied the
remover from the bottom up when I rinse
it I'm gonna start from the top down so
that the chemicals are running down to
the ground okay so you can see that
even though this is brick this is coming
off really nicely and none of the brick
is chipping away so I can get a bit
closer one thing to note is that you can
change the orientation of your tip so it
can spray vertically or more
horizontally right now it's working out
really well for me to spray vertically
and kind of work my way along the bridge
[Music]
as you can see this is really working
very well it's taking all the rust off
and don't worry if there's some little
areas of paint chipping this house is
being prepped to paint so we'll take
care of that later this rust stain is
going to be gone in no time
okay another situation that you might
encounter is when vegetation and in this
case vines kind of grows up against the
house it leaves marks here so what I'm
going to do first is try and just kind
of bang loose anything I can with my
hand but then our process is going to be
exactly the same as over on the other
side of the house we'll use the
detergent and then power wash it off
[Music]
all right so for this area here around
the door I want to be really careful
never to pressure wash on any window
seams where there's caulking or right
around the edges of my doors so what I'm
going to do is stay clear of that but
I'm also gonna take a little step back
so there won't be quite as much pressure
you want to be sure that you don't power
wash any living creatures like my little
lizard friend so I'm gonna get rid of
him we're doing yep we're good
I'll put our lizards took us a couple
hours but this house is completely
pressure-washed and looking so much
better if you plan to paint after
pressure washing your house make sure
you give it a couple days to really
fully dry before moving on to that next
step whether you are preparing to paint
your home or just need to get it looking
nice and clean and new I hope that you
walk away from this video feeling
completely confident and knowing how to
pressure wash and do it the right way
and remember as always do it right
start with Lowe's want to learn more be
sure to check out the Lowe's YouTube
channel for great step-by-step in how to
videos and lowes.com/howto for all kinds
of projects