Softwash Exterior Cleaning Services

Soft wash exterior building cleaning, a specialized subfield of the pressure washing industry that substitutes the use of chemical energy for work that would usually be accomplished by using higher pressure and temperatures and the manpower required to operate that equipment to clean a surface.  Generally speaking, soft wash building cleaning tactics are significantly less expensive, and easier to perform.  It usually requires significantly less energy, less fuel, labor and less expensive equipment.  It is most often employed to obviate the potential for damage to the surface being cleaned by traditional pressure washing tactics or for reasons of lower cost, or both.  It can fall short with respect to the results that can be achieved compared against traditional pressure washing tactics but has it's rightful place in the arsenal and skill set of any cleaning company as in certain situations, it is the best cleaning method to employ, or at least incorporated as a supporting component in a given project.

The power of chemical energy and modern chemistry employed to protect sensitive surfaces.

Significantly reduced resource expenditure means significantly lower project costs.

Hybrid tactics combined with environmentally friendly, and often required waste water reclamation tactics yields the perfect balance of the cost to benefit ratio.

Softwashing Methodology

“Softwashing” is often an aesthetically and functionally superior method of exterior building cleaning.  It uses the power chemistry and chemical energy to replace the physical working energy needed to clean the surfaces using traditional pressure washing tooling and equipment.  It can obviate the need in more situations for the need for aerial lift equipment up to greater heights and also helps prevent possible damage to the surfaces being cleaned or their substrates by also limiting the necessity for excessive temperature and pressures to achieve the same standard of result. Additionally, the associated fuel and labor and machine costs of the project are usually lower when soft washing tactics are employed.  A detergent recipe usually consisting of Sodium Hypochlorite (industrial strength or concentrated bleach) is mixed down with a surfactant, a soapy viscous product (often substituted with dish soap) to help it spread and “dwell” evenly and uniformly. These two concentrated formulas are mixed down from its supplied industrial concentration (usually of 12.5%) to about 1.1%-1.5% or sometimes 2% or 3% or 4% for certain surfaces.  It is sprayed on to the building at ground level or from an aerial lift at excessive height and allowed to dwell for 10 -20 minutes, where dislodges all dirt and growing organics so effectively that the building can simply be rinsed with clean cold water at much lower pressures to take everything off.  The detergent recipe goes totally inert within an hour or two, as the bleach essentially evaporates away breaking down into its final form of basically salt. leaving no additional requirements, except very thorough rinsing...  However it does share the same requirement as traditional pressure washing that all doors and windows must be closed, and all personal property must be removed from decks and patios to prevent damage by overspray, which is is impossible to avoid without masking operations. The cleaning mixture while active, has a strong bleach smell which is somewhat masked by a pleasant apple smell in the surfactant. The areas of work should be totally clear of people, and just like household bleach, should not be allowed to touch skin or eyes. Softwashing, if carefully and professionally planned for and executed, can be a superior and cost effective cleaning method.

Softwashing, as with standard pressure washing, must employ full wash water reclamation and capture, if any of the wash water or detergent will hit a non-permeable surface such as concrete or asphalt, and run to storm drains, stormwater catch basins, or natural bodies of water. Local, State and Federal law, derived from the Clean Water Act, all state clearly and unequivocally that “only rain may enter the drain”.

Integration of Window Cleaning

For the optional integration of window cleaning, we use the new ultra clean water systems made by IPC.  This allows us to clean windows from the ground up to 35’ with a specially designed water “ultra purification” system that allows water used in cleaning to dry leaving no spots, thus eliminating the need for labor intensive squeegee fanning techniques that often leave the bottoms and edges of very high windows still dirty and soapy…  Our pure water systems work very well and are monitored with TDS (total dissolved solids) meters to ensure that the wash water remains below 10 parts per million, ensuring that when the water dries, that no spots can be visible. The windows are soaped and brushed up in traditional fashion and then rinsed with an extremely clean and electrically de-ionized water supplied through a special system, that dries with absolutely ZERO residue, leaving perfectly clean windows…  The system while expensive to purchase is extremely labor and time efficient…