Washing & Prep

Every Austin spring, live oaks blanket the city in yellow-green pollen and drop catkins by the wheelbarrow. It is a local rite of passage, an allergy event, and — less discussed — a genuine maintenance issue for every wood surface on the property. Here is what the annual tree mess actually does to fences, decks,…

There is exactly one diagnostic tool every wood owner already has, and it costs nothing: a hose. The water-bead test answers the question that governs all exterior wood maintenance — is the finish still working? — in about ten seconds, with no expertise and no equipment. It is the single most useful habit in this…

A green film creeping up the shaded side of a fence is one of the most common calls we get in Austin, usually phrased as a cleaning question. It is really a biology question, and the distinction matters: growth that gets scrubbed off returns within weeks, while growth that gets killed properly stays gone for…

Search this topic and you will find confident PSI numbers contradicting each other on every result. The reason is that pressure alone is the wrong variable: the same machine setting that cleans one fence safely will carve its neighbor, because what the wood experiences depends on the tip, the distance, the wood, and the hand…

Somewhere between the garden hose that does nothing and the rented pressure washer that does too much lives the actual answer for cleaning delicate exterior surfaces: soft washing. The concept is simple — let chemistry do the work force cannot do safely — and understanding it explains a lot about how wood should and should…

Here is the uncomfortable truth about deck stain: the product in the can matters less than the surface it lands on. Premium stain over a dirty deck fails early; modest stain over properly prepared wood outlasts it. Washing is not the chore before the real work — it is the step that decides how the…

Every finish — stain or paint, premium or budget — makes the same silent assumption: that it is bonding to wood. Not to dust, not to mildew, not to the chalky remains of the last coat. Cleaning is how that assumption gets made true, and choosing the right method for what is actually on the…

An annual professional wash is the cheapest maintenance a property’s wood ever gets. Austin loads fences, decks, and pergolas with a year of dust, pollen, and mildew — and one calibrated, wood-safe washing clears it before buildup becomes damage, keeping finishes breathing, boards drying properly, and the whole yard reading maintained. What a Year in…

Curb appeal projects usually mean weeks and contractors. Washing is the exception: one afternoon of professional cleaning changes how a property reads from the street more than almost any spend of similar size — because most of what makes a home look tired is not damage, it is buildup, and buildup comes off. The Fence…