Professional Driveway Cleaning in Stephens City VA

Today's project took place in Stephens City Va. Our customer is getting ready to put their house on the market and needed to get it ready for listing pictures and showings so they called us to help them out.

One thing that many homeowners neglect and don't think to consider keeping up with is their concrete/driveway cleaning. It can easily be overlooked and when not properly maintained can become a big eye sore and eventually a safety hazard when left uncared for.

The thing to remember about concrete is that it is Porous like a sponge. And over time the surface absorbs dirt, grime, oil is a perfect place for algae to grow. Over time it gets dull and dirty which isn't too bad but when it goes longer then a couple years the algae can start to grow and take over making the surface slick when wet which can lead to slips, trips and falls as well as an unsafe parking locations for your vehicle.

To avoid these risks its recommended to have your concrete driveway, or walkways pressure washed at least every 2 years. Now before pressure washing any concrete their are a few things to consider.

First, how old is the concrete? This may seem trivial but it is very important! If concrete is less then 3 years old it should not be pressure washed. The reason for this is that concrete takes at least 3 years to fully cure and if the surface is pressure washed before then the top finish also known as the cream can be stripped off permanently damaging the surface of the concrete. So before the 3 year mark the approved method of cleaning concrete is with a soft wash process where an algicide treatment is sprayed on the concrete and left to dwell till dry.

Second how large is the area being cleaned? If the area being cleaned is more then a couple feet it is highly advised that a surface cleaner is used to clean the surface. Not only does this speed up the cleaning time but it gives a much more even clean of the surface.

Third, is their a lot of oil or grease present? Due to concretes porous nature in order to get majority of the grease or oil off of the surface of the concrete a industrial degreaser or a caustic soda, will need to be applied to break down the grease/oil prior to pressure washing.

Fourth, what is the drainage path for the water? This may not seem like a big deal but depending on which way the run off from the cleaning is going to go will effect how you attack the cleaning and rinsing.

In this circumstance we elected for a pretreat with an algicide and surface clean. Started by spraying a 4% mix of Sodium Hypochlorite and water on the driveway to kill the organics and to loosen the dirt on the surface. Once we had coated the entire driveway we allowed it to dwell for 15 minutes while we prepped our hoses, the pressure washer and the surface cleaner.

When we were ready to start we hooked up the surface cleaner started the pressure washer and began cleaning. We started at the top of the driveway near the street. With larger sections of concrete it is always best to work in sections. Surface cleaning then rinsing away the leftovers once each section is done so it doesn't reobsorb back into the surface. Since the highest part of the driveway sloped towards the road we were able to redirect our run off for that section towards the street. The other sections sloped towards the middle of the driveway dumping into the yard. To avoid any issues from the algicide in the run off we watered the section of the yard that would get the bulk of the run off before and after the clean to saturate the ground and help dilute the run off and mitigate any damage to the grass. As we worked out way down the driveway surface cleaning an rinsing running the surface cleaner in a zig-zag pattern with a slight overlap we noticed some areas which needed to be cleaned a second time due to heavy build up. Once we finished washing and rinsing the bulk of the driveway with the surface cleaner we switched to a want and hit any corners or edged we couldn't clean properly with the surface cleaner. After we finished we called our customer out to take a look and make sure they were happy with our work and all their expectations were met. Our customer was thrilled we packed up and moved on to the next job

Service provided: Concrete Cleaning

Location: Stephens City, VA