Choose Wet & Forget for a Cost-Effective Outdoor Cleaner
When it comes to a cost-effective outdoor cleaner for your home, the goal is value.
If you spend too much money, you’re likely paying for things you don’t need. A two-story house may not need an expensive four-person crew carrying loads of equipment.
Even if you prefer to spend as little money as possible upfront, you could still pay unexpected long-term costs. That’s because many house washes and cleaning tools can damage surfaces and the surrounding environment.
If you want the right balance of value and effectiveness, stick with Wet & Forget Outdoor. It gives you the effective cleaning power you want at a price you can afford.
The Importance of a Cost-Effective Outdoor Cleaner
When it comes to outdoor cleaners and house washes, there are a few options:
- Power washing or pressure washing. (The two are essentially the same, though some use “power washing” to mean high-pressured hot water and “pressure washing” to mean high-pressured cold water.)
- A soft house wash using a low-pressure water spray and a bristle brush.
- Bleach-based cleaners.
- Wet & Forget Outdoor.
With the first two options, you also can choose whether to hire someone to do it for you or take on the task yourself. Your time is valuable, but then again, so is your money.
As we mentioned above, low costs aren’t always what they appear. We’ve all had the experience of purchasing the cheapest option only to realize that its flaws mean you pay more in the long run.
So, calculating the cost-effectiveness of your outdoor cleaner requires you to look at three things:
- Upfront costs, like tools, equipment, and personnel.
- Long-term costs, like the need for repeated cleanings or fixing any damage caused by the tools or equipment.
- Your time, as well as the intensity of work. (An hour of spraying is much easier than an hour of scrubbing.)
When you break it down this way, it’s really hard to find a better option for an outdoor cleaner.
How Much Does Wet & Forget Outdoor Cost?
Using the breakdown above, it’s pretty simple to figure out Wet & Forget Outdoor’s overall cost. So, let’s do some quick back-of-the-envelope math to get started.
Regarding upfront costs, Wet & Forget Outdoor Concentrate is usually sold for around $33 online or at your local retailer. Since one bottle makes six gallons of outdoor house wash, you’re essentially paying around $5.50 a gallon.
Because Wet & Forget Outdoor requires a simple mix of the spray to water, you’ll also need a garden sprayer. If you don’t have one already, BobVila.com recommends a sprayer sold for around $15 online.
Wet & Forget Outdoor has no long-term costs. The product is safe to use on virtually any outdoor surface, making it an effective roof cleaner, siding cleaner, sidewalk cleaner, and more.
It also contains no bleach or phosphates and is non-acidic. Yet it’s also powerful enough to eliminate even the toughest cases of algae, lichen, moss, or mildew stains.
The cost of your time is also negligible.
Mixing the concentrate with water takes only a few minutes. While this will vary depending on the size of your home and what needs cleaning, it should take you well less than an hour to apply the house wash spray to your home.
That work is low-intensity. The spray will work with wind and rain to gently lift stains over time.
So, that means you won’t have to awkwardly bend or agonizingly scrub. Simply spray and walk away.
Boosting the value even further, a single application can keep surfaces clean for up to a year.
That means if you’re starting without a garden sprayer, the cost of Wet & Forget Concentrate is $48 upfront and less than an hour of your time every year.
How Much Does Power Washing Cost?
The cost of power or pressure washing is a little bit more complicated to calculate. There are a variety of factors that can affect your upfront cost:
- The size of your home.
- What part of your home needs cleaning (roof, siding, driveway, deck, patio, fencing, etc.)
- Where you live.
- The number of people on the cleaning crew.
You may be able to avoid some of these costs by purchasing or renting your own pressure washer.
However, as you’ll see, that may not save you as much as you think. Because there are so many factors at play, let’s look at a range of numbers.
To hire a professional power washer or power washing crew, you can expect to pay anywhere between $150 and $2,500 upfront. That price includes fixed overhead costs, such as insurance, licensing, and travel.
The number of pressure washing services you need per year can vary.
In some cases, you may only need a single service per year. In certain high-traffic areas, like driveways, walking paths, and patios, you may need those surfaces serviced in the spring and fall.
Of course, the upside here is that the time you spend cleaning is zero minutes. On the other hand, you may be willing to try and save some money by purchasing the equipment and handling the job yourself.
If you go the DIY route, you can expect to pay between $35 and $175 per day to rent a pressure washer. Purchasing your own equipment can cost up to $1,000.
Because pressure washing tends to be a methodical task, you should expect to spend a couple of hours cleaning. However, smaller, one-off jobs may only need half an hour.
Still, there are some surfaces that you should never pressure wash. Homes with brick walls, painted surfaces, or windows are vulnerable to damage caused by the pressure washer.
So, depending on which route you go, you can expect to pay anywhere between $35 and $2,500 to pressure wash your home’s roof, siding, and other exterior surfaces. You can also project that you’ll work somewhere between zero minutes and a couple of hours a couple of times a year.
While this section is predominantly about pressure washing, we should note that soft washing can be pricey, too. Depending on many of the same factors as pressure washing, you could end up spending between $300 to $900 to clean your home, and you may need that cleaning twice a year — if not more.
Whether you prefer to pressure wash or use a soft house wash method to clean your home’s exterior surfaces, you’ll pay a hefty chunk of change upfront. When you keep in mind that pressure washing and so-called soft house wash cleaning agents can damage surfaces, you could end up paying long-term, too.
How Much Does Bleach Cost?
Old-school bleach may be an easy temptation when it comes to cleaning outdoor surfaces. But just because bleach has a low price point doesn’t make it the most cost-effective option in the long run.
Bleach-based cleaners are labor-intensive, as they require both scrubbing and rinsing. So, although they may seem inexpensive, you have to factor in the extra time you’ll spend scrubbing away at your outdoor spaces and places.
When cleaning with bleach, you are simply “bleaching out” the mold and mildew stains. Since bleach doesn’t properly clean the surface, you’re likely to see those green and black stains return in no time.
Soon enough, you’ll be stuck in the cleaning cycle and have to come back and repeat the cleaning process over and over again. Using bleach frequently can quickly speed up the wear and tear on your outdoor surfaces.
Furthermore, bleach can harm outdoor surfaces. On the pH scale, bleach ranks at a whopping 13, making it highly caustic. Wet & Forget has a pH of 8, making it nearly pH-neutral and safe to use on virtually any outdoor surface. Bleach is 10,000 times more caustic than Wet and Forget.
Got algae stains on your awnings or patio umbrellas? Think twice about using bleach. This caustic cleaner can cause permanent discoloration on your outdoor fabric surfaces.
Do you really want to risk using a highly caustic cleaner on a large investment such as your home? There are a variety of surfaces that bleach should never be used on, including metal, marble, granite, and more.
Why waste time worrying if a cleaner will damage your home when you can use Wet & Forget’s nearly pH-neutral formula to effectively and efficiently clean all of your outdoor surfaces.
For a Cost-Effective Outdoor Cleaner, Choose Wet & Forget
Wet & Forget Outdoor is inexpensive and effective. It’s the best balance of everything you need to effectively clean your roof, siding, sidewalk, driveway, or virtually any other outdoor surface.
Pick up Wet & Forget Concentrate today by heading to your local retailer or shopping online.
Have questions about Wet and Forget? Check out our FAQ section.
