The two things a house wash leaves behind

Tiger striping, and why washing the house makes it obvious

The dark vertical bands down the face of a gutter are not simply dirt. Rain running over the lip of the gutter carries a fine film of oxidised aluminium, roof grit and airborne pollution, and that mixture dries onto the front face in stripes. It grips hard enough that it survives a rinse and even survives most house washes, because it is a different problem from the algae on the siding beside it.

Which is why people notice it right after the walls are cleaned. The gutter did not get worse. Everything around it got better, and now the one dirty band runs the length of the house at eye level. It needs a dedicated cleaner applied to the gutter face and worked, and it comes off.

Fences go grey for two different reasons

Wood fencing loses colour from ultraviolet light breaking down the surface fibres, and it goes green or black from algae and mildew in shaded, damp runs. They look similar from a distance and they are not the same thing. The organic growth washes off. The greyed surface layer comes off with it, which is what exposes the colour underneath and is why a washed wood fence often looks close to new.

Vinyl fencing is more straightforward. It holds a green film in shade and a chalky oxidised layer in full sun, both of which wash off at low pressure. What you cannot do with vinyl is go at it hard, because pressure marks it permanently and the marks show worse than the dirt did.

What is included

• Gutter faces and downspouts, cleaned with a dedicated product rather than a rinse
• Both sides of a fence where access allows, because one clean side looks half done
• Posts, rails and gates, including the ground line where growth is heaviest
• Wood and vinyl handled at their own pressures, never a single setting for both
• A rinse of anything nearby that catches spray during the work

A note on what this is not

This is the exterior face of the gutter, not the inside. Clearing leaves and debris out of the gutter channel is a separate job from making the front of it look right, and if that is what you need, say so on the call so you are quoted for the work you actually want.