How to Power Wash Your Driveway

How to Power Wash Your Driveway

You may wonder how difficult it is to power wash your own exterior. It is actually pretty easy to pressure wash your own exterior surfaces. Many people own their own pressure washing equipment, can borrow some from a friend, or rent some at a local home improvement store. Power washing actually uses equipment that heats the water, and that equipment is a little more difficult to find. So, this tutorial will focus more on DIY pressure washing. However, the steps for pressure and power washing are similar.

1. Familiarize yourself with the equipment. If you have any questions about how to operate it, ask at the rental agency, the person who is lending it to you, or look at the manual. No physical manual? You can usually find a manual online.
2. If the spray hose is not attached to the pressure washer, attach it.
3. Attach a garden hose to the inlet on the power washer.
4. Place a low-pressure nozzle on the spray wand.
5. If electric, plug in the pressure washer and turn it on. Do not use an extension cord. If gas, start the pressure washer.
6. Point the wand at the driveway and pull the trigger. Make sure not to point the spray at yourself, at anybody else, or at anything delicate. The water will have enough pressure to damage things, including skin.
7. Move the stream of water back and forth to remove dirt. Adjust your distance for optimum cleaning.
8. If the surface is not getting clean enough, you can try changing to a higher-pressure nozzle.
9. If you have mold or algae on your driveway that you cannot remove with the water, spray it with bleach or another mold-killing agent, let it sit, then try spraying again.
10. You can use a detergent to clean surfaces that are more difficult to clean.
11. You do not want to spray debris onto cleaned surfaces, so plan your cleaning to move forward, with clean areas behind you.
12. Direct the spray towards grassy areas or runoff areas.
13. If you use a detergent, make sure it is environmentally friendly and will not damage any surrounding lawns or flowers.
14. To cover large areas, you can also get a disk attachment for most pressure washers. This attachment will spin a circle and will clean flat surfaces much more rapidly than the regular spray wand.

Sound like a lot of work? DIY is not for everybody. If DIY is not for you, contact us and have the professionals at Absolute handle your power washing needs.