How Much Does It Cost to Pressure Wash a House?

Most houses I wash around Marietta land between $250 and $650. Small ranch, low end. Big two-story with a lot of trim and a lot of green on the north side, high end. Plenty of houses fall outside that on either side.

Rather than make you call around for it, here's the range you're looking at and what moves the number inside it.

What a house wash runs

Price follows size, so the fastest way to place your house is to find it here:

• Most single-story homes: $200 to $375
• Most two-story homes: $325 to $600
• Larger homes, 3,500 sq ft and up: starting around $550
• Driveway: $100 to $200 for a typical two-car drive
• Roof: quoted on its own, usually $500 to $1,200 depending on size and pitch

Gutter brightening, decks, and fences get quoted per job, since those depend more on condition and layout than on size.

Most people do the driveway in the same visit as the house. Same setup, one trip, and you're not looking at a clean house next to a stained driveway.

What changes the price

Square footage

Biggest factor by far. More wall means more time, more product, and more water, so the price tracks the size of the house more than anything else on this list.

Two stories cost more than a ranch with the same footprint, but not because of the height itself. I reach everything from the ground on a house wash. No ladders leaned against your gutters, no boots on your roof. A two-story just has more wall on it than a one-story does.

What your house is made of

Vinyl cleans fast. Painted wood needs a gentler mix and somebody watching what they're doing, because old paint gives up easy. Brick and stucco hold dirt down in the mortar and the texture, so they need more dwell time. Hardie board falls somewhere in the middle.

How bad the growth is

We've got humidity, we've got pollen, and we've got shade, which means we've got algae. A north-facing wall under a stand of oaks will be green in a way a sun-baked south wall never gets. Heavy growth needs a stronger mix and a second pass.

If it's been five or six years, expect to pay more than the neighbor who does it every other spring. Catching up always costs more than keeping up.

Access and landscaping

Tight side yards. Steep grades. Fenced backyards where the gate is 30 inches wide. HVAC units pushed right against the wall, mature beds along the whole foundation. None of it is difficult, it's just slow, because doing it right means pre-wetting plants, covering fixtures, and rinsing everything down afterward. That's the part a cheap operation skips first.

Where the water comes from

Most jobs run off your outside spigot and that's included. If your pressure is weak or you're on a well that can't keep up, I bring water, and that adds to the job.

Whether the roof is in scope

Roof cleaning gets quoted separately because it's a different job with different risk. Soft wash only. Never pressure. Pressure on asphalt shingles takes off the granules that make the shingle work, and you won't notice until the roof starts failing years early.

Pitch is the other reason roofs cost more than siding. A steep roof on a two-story takes longer to cover properly than a low pitch on a ranch.

Why the cheapest quote usually isn't

Every couple of months somebody texts me a photo of siding with wand marks striped into it, or a roof with bare patches, or a bed of azaleas that browned out two weeks after a wash. Those jobs all started with the lowest bid on the street.

The equipment in this trade isn't expensive and there's not much stopping anyone from buying a machine at the hardware store, sticking a magnet on the truck, and undercutting everybody in the neighborhood by eighty bucks. What's harder to buy is knowing which surfaces can't take pressure, what mix strength won't kill your landscaping, and when to back the wand off.

So the gap between a $200 wash and a $400 wash usually isn't labor. It's method and insurance and whether the guy holding the wand knows what happens if he holds it too close.

What soft washing does to the bill

I soft wash roofs and siding. I pressure wash hard surfaces like concrete and pavers, where pressure belongs. Soft washing runs low pressure with a cleaning solution that kills algae at the root instead of knocking it off the surface.

It can run a little higher up front, since the product costs money and the process takes longer. It also holds. Blast a wall clean and it looks good for a season. Kill the growth properly and you're looking at a year or two before it comes back.

How often does a house need it?

Every one to two years in this climate. Heavy tree cover pushes you toward annually. An open sunny lot can stretch longer. Roofs run on a longer cycle, three to five years for most houses.

Waiting doesn't save you anything. Algae and lichen root deeper into siding and shingles the longer they sit.

Getting a real number for your house

You don't have to be home and we don't have to schedule anything. I quote off Google Earth. I pull up your address, measure the house and the driveway from the satellite imagery, and send you a real number the same day. Nobody has to stand in your driveway with a clipboard, and you don't have to block off an afternoon waiting on a window somebody gave you.

If there's something the satellite won't show me, like a stained section on the back of the house or a shaded wall that's worse than the rest, text me a photo of it and I'll factor that in.

Every job still gets quoted on its own, because no two houses in Marietta measure out the same.

Call or text 678-984-9542, or send me the details here. You'll get me, not a call center.

Serving Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Woodstock, Powder Springs, Smyrna, and the rest of Cobb, Cherokee, Paulding, Fulton, and Bartow counties. See residential services for everything I clean, or the service areas page for the full map.

Common questions

Does a house wash include the driveway? No, that's measured and priced separately. Most people do both in one visit.

Will pressure washing damage my siding or plants? It can, in the wrong hands. That's why I soft wash siding and roofs instead of pressure washing them, and why plants get pre-wet and rinsed on every job. I don't damage plants, siding, or roofing material.

Can you give me a price without coming out? Yes. I quote from Google Earth, so I can measure your house and get you a number the same day without setting foot on the property.

Do you charge extra for a two-story? Not as a fee. A two-story just has more house on it than a ranch, and the price follows the size. I do the whole wash from the ground either way, so there's no height surcharge.

What's included in a house wash? Siding, soffits, eaves, gutter exteriors, and the front porch area. Anything past that gets called out in the quote so nothing surprises you on the invoice.