A lot of the siding in this town is old enough that pressure is the fastest way to ruin it. Chalky vinyl in the North Ward, painted wood downtown, aluminum that marks if you lean on it. All of it washes up properly at low pressure, and none of it survives a wand held too close.
Orillia has a lot of housing stock from before the vinyl got good. Siding hung in the late seventies and eighties has usually gone chalky by now, which means the surface has oxidised and comes off on your hand as a fine white powder. It is not damage and it does not need fixing, but it changes what you can do to the wall.
Put a pressure washer on chalked vinyl and it strips that layer unevenly. You end up with a wall that is genuinely clean and looks blotchy, lighter where the wand lingered and duller where it did not, and there is no going back from it. The algae was less noticeable than the result.
Downtown the same problem wears a different coat. Painted wood on a century home has often been repainted three or four times, and the layers underneath are not always sound. Force finds the weakest one and takes everything above it off in sheets. That is a paint job you did not budget for, caused by a wash that was supposed to be cosmetic.
Age explains why you have to be careful. The lake explains why the wall was dirty in the first place. Algae wants damp more than it wants anything else, and a house near Couchiching or down towards the Narrows sits in higher humidity for more of the year than one further up the hill.
The practical version: the lake-facing elevation is usually a year or so ahead of the other three. People read that as the wall having been neglected. It has not been. It is being fed conditions the others are not, and it will want doing again sooner. On a waterfront property we will normally tell you the lake side is the job and the rest can wait a season.
Pressure washing uses force. Soft washing uses a cleaning solution at roughly garden-hose pressure and lets the solution do the work. Siding, decks and fences almost always want the second one, and on an older wall it is not close.
The growth on your siding is alive. Killing it works better than hitting it, and it stays gone longer, because knocking the top off a colony leaves the roots to start again. That is the difference between a wall that looks clean for a season and one that looks clean for a few years.
We soft wash by default and only turn the pressure up where the surface can genuinely take it. Top down, surface kept wet, rinsed properly.
Siding, decks and fences. Not driveways, not walkways, not roofs.
Concrete and interlock need a surface cleaner rather than a wand, or you get the striping everyone recognises once it has been pointed out. Roof washing carries a real risk of shingle damage on top of a serious fall hazard. We would rather tell you it is not our work than take the money and hope. Ask and we will point you at somebody local who does it properly.
Three shapes this town keeps producing, and what the wash actually went into.
Late seventies bungalow with the original vinyl, chalked right across the front. Soft washed at low pressure so the oxidised surface stayed put. The owner had been quoted for a pressure wash elsewhere and would have ended up with a patchy wall.
Two-storey a couple of hundred metres from Couchiching. The lake-facing elevation was a full year ahead of the other three for growth, which is normal that close to the water. Whole house, and the deck went in with it.
Newer subdivision build, so newer siding and only one wall with anything on it. Half the job the owner had budgeted for. The fence along the property line was the part that actually wanted doing.
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Most of our washing is booked as an add-on by people already having windows or gutters done. It saves a second trip charge and the order matters: we wash first and clean the glass afterwards, so nothing lands back on clean windows.
It depends on the size of the house, how much of it we can reach from the ground, and whether the deck and fence go in with it, so a flat rate published here would be wrong for most homes in town. Text a photo of the house and the wall that is bothering you to (705) 718-1856 and we will send a real number the same day. No site visit, no deposit. If it turns out you only need one wall done we will tell you that instead of quoting the whole house.
No, but it is old enough that how it gets washed matters. Vinyl from that era has usually gone chalky, which means the surface has oxidised and comes off on your hand as a fine powder. A pressure washer strips that unevenly and leaves the wall patchy in a way that looks worse than the algae did. A soft wash lifts the growth off without taking the surface with it. If the chalking is heavy we will say so before we start, because on some walls the honest answer is that washing will help and only paint will fix it.
Not at the pressure we use, and this is the main reason we do not point a pressure washer at a house downtown. Painted wood on an older Orillia home has often been repainted several times, and the layers underneath are not always sound. Force finds the weak layer and takes it off in sheets. We work with a cleaning solution at roughly garden-hose pressure so the growth dies and the paint stays where it is. If there is already flaking before we arrive we will show you and let you decide.
Damp air. A wall near Couchiching or down towards the Narrows sits in higher humidity for more of the year than one further up the hill, and algae needs damp more than it needs anything else. The same wall on the same house set back three streets is usually a year or two behind. It is not that the lakefront house is neglected, it is that it is being fed.
Same visit, and it is often the part that actually needed doing. Grey-green on a deck is algae, and once it is slippery it has stopped being a cosmetic question. Wood gets soft washed rather than pressure washed, because a pressure tip tears the soft grain out from between the harder rings and leaves a furred surface you cannot undo. If you are re-staining, book the wash two or three dry days before the stain goes on.
No. We do siding, decks and fences. Concrete and interlock need a surface cleaner or you get the striping a wand always leaves, and roof washing carries a real risk of shingle damage on top of a serious fall hazard. We would rather say plainly that it is not our work than take it on and hope. Ask and we will point you at somebody local who does it properly.
Late May through September. The solution needs temperatures above about 10C to work properly, so the season is genuinely shorter than people expect. Late season is fine and usually quieter. Once the nights are consistently cold it becomes a spring job, and we will tell you that rather than take a booking we cannot do well.
No. There is no travel fee anywhere in Simcoe County, including the country roads out past Washago and around Atherley. We are based in Horseshoe Valley, so most of this is a normal drive rather than a special trip, and we would rather price the job than the distance.
Yes, and it is the usual way. Most of our washing is booked as an add-on by people already getting windows or gutters done, which saves a second trip charge. We wash the walls first and clean the glass afterwards, so nothing lands back on clean windows.
Text a picture of the front and the wall that is bothering you and we will send a real number the same day. No site visit, no deposit, and if the honest answer is that your siding wants painting rather than washing, we will tell you that too.
