Pressure Washing in Concord

Concord's hard surfaces are period surfaces, and that dictates the method before anything else does.

The tessellated verandah is the signature. Those tiles are unglazed, laid in a fine grout, and high pressure lifts them and strips the grout line in a single pass. The geometric front paths and the encaustic tile on porch steps behave the same way. Sandstone kerbing, steps and low retaining walls turn up throughout the older streets and are soft enough to scar permanently.

The staining is deciduous rather than coastal. Plane and brush box leaf sitting wet on concrete through autumn leaches a brown tannin that penetrates rather than resting on the surface, and jacaranda flower drop leaves a purple-grey mark most owners assume is permanent. Both need breaking down chemically before pressure achieves anything.

The river keeps everything damp for longer, so shaded side paths between the house and the boundary hold moisture and grow moss that never quite clears.

Driveways are long and, on the original builds, plain slab or brick paving rather than modern exposed aggregate.

We set pressure by surface and go in low on stone, tessellated tile and old brick paving.

A tessellated verandah is one of the defining features of a Concord bungalow, and it is also the surface most often destroyed by cleaning.

Those tiles are unglazed and set in fine grout. High pressure lifts them and strips the joint, and re-laying a tessellated verandah to match an original geometric pattern is specialist work with a long lead time and a matching problem. The benefit of the right method here is simply that you still have the verandah afterwards.

Sandstone steps and kerbing carry the same risk, and both are original to houses where original detail is a substantial part of the value.

On the driveways and paths the win is that the staining actually comes out. Tannin from matted plane leaf and the purple-grey marking left by jacaranda both look permanent and generally are not, provided the organic pigment is broken down before pressure is applied rather than simply blasted at.

There is a seasonal logic worth using. Cleaning after the autumn drop clears the material that would otherwise sit wet on the surface all winter, which is when most of the staining actually forms.