Pressure Washing Cost Calculator

A standard two-car driveway (about 600 sq ft) runs about $143 — inside Angi's $100–$350 band and HomeGuide's $0.08–$0.35 per sq ft for standard cleaning. Heavy oil or rust spotting pushes the same driveway toward $194, because it needs hot water or a pretreatment pass, not just pressure.

Concrete and brick take full pressure; wood decking, siding and anything painted should be soft-washed — low pressure plus a surfactant solution — or you'll etch concrete lines into wood and force water behind vinyl. On a 1,800 sq ft house wash, soft washing prices around $479 versus $369 metered as straight pressure: the solution and dwell time cost more, but it's the only safe method for most siding.

Small jobs are dominated by the trip minimum — most exterior cleaners charge $100–$150 before a single nozzle is pulled, and this model uses $135. Beyond that, the spread is soil level (heavy black algae roughly 1.6×'s the labor), access (a second story adds ~15% labor), and whether the crew carries insurance and water-reclaim gear. A $99 coupon outfit and an insured two-person company can both be honest at their own numbers.

A two-person crew covers roughly 500–800 sq ft of concrete per hour with a surface cleaner, a 1,500–2,500 sq ft house wash in 1–3 hours, and a wood deck at about half the speed of concrete because it is washed on lower pressure and often treated twice. A fence is the slowest per square foot — both faces of every board. Most single-surface jobs are done in a morning, which is the argument for bundling surfaces into one visit: the trip minimum and setup are already paid, so a second surface costs only its metered rate. Plan on 24–48 hours of dry time before staining or sealing anything you washed.

Yes — both paint and stain bond badly to chalky, mildewed or grayed surfaces, and manufacturers routinely void coverage over unwashed wood. Budget the wash as prep: a 300 sq ft deck runs about $159 to clean, and it should dry fully before the first coat. If staining is next, use the deck staining calculator for the finish coat.

The house-wash mix is mostly sodium hypochlorite (bleach) plus surfactant — it kills the mildew but will burn shrubs if not pre-wetted and rinsed, and it irritates pets until dry. A careful crew soaks surrounding planting, keeps pressure off window seals and weep holes, and re-rinses beds afterward. Ask for that process by name; crews that skip the plant rinse are the ones who leave brown lawns.

For a single driveway, renting an electric washer (~$50–$100/day) plus cleaner runs about half of the $143 pro price — but at your pace, roughly a weekend half-day, with real risk of etching concrete, striping softwood and blowing water behind siding. DIY makes sense when you'll wash several surfaces across a year and can buy instead of rent; for a whole-house soft wash, the chemical handling and ladder work are usually left to pros.

No permit is required to wash your own surfaces. The regulatory angle is runoff, and it mostly bites the pro, not you: many municipalities restrict storm-drain discharge of wash water under clean-water rules, and commercial operators may need catch mats, drain blocks or wash-water recovery gear — part of why an insured company quotes higher than a $99 coupon outfit. What does touch you: drought-stage water-use restrictions can limit or pause residential washing seasonally, and never pressure-wash paint on a pre-1978 home — it aerosolizes lead and turns a cleaning job into an EPA RRP abatement problem.