Home › Driveway Cleaning
First thing anyone sees. Last thing anyone cleans.
A drive is the largest single surface on most properties and the one people look straight at from the road. Cleaned at 3,000 to 4,000 PSI on a surface cleaner, so it comes back even rather than striped.
Driveways typically run $100–$800. Quoted before anything is booked.
Four different problems
A dirty drive is rarely one thing.
They come off in different ways, and one of them does not come off with pressure at all.
The overall film
Algae and mildew down in the pores. This is the bulk of it and the reason the whole slab reads grey. It lifts.
Tyre scuffing
Black arcs where the wheels turn on the same patch every day. Rubber on the surface. It lifts.
Oil
Recent drips usually lift. Oil that has been soaking into bare concrete for years has gone into the pores and may only lighten. That gets said up front rather than explained afterwards.
Rust
Orange staining off a sprinkler head or something metal left out. Chemical, not mechanical. More pressure will not touch it and will etch the slab around it.
Honest limits
What a wash will not do.
It will not make an old slab new. Concrete carries its history — hairline cracking, pour lines, patches where something was cut in and filled back. A wash takes off what has grown and settled on top of all that. It does not resurface anything.
It will not stop it coming back either. In this climate the film returns on roughly a one to two year cycle, quicker in shade. Anybody promising a permanent result is selling something other than a wash.
What it does do is take a drive that reads neglected from the road back to the colour of the concrete, which on most houses is the largest visible change available for the money.
Straight answers
Questions about driveways.
What does a driveway cost?
Driveways run $100 to $800. Size accounts for most of it, then how much is actually sitting on the slab. Every drive is quoted before anything is booked.
Will the tyre marks come out?
Usually. The black arcs where wheels turn on the same spot are rubber transferred onto the surface, and they lift with the right tip and setting.
What about rust from the sprinkler?
Rust is a chemical problem, not a pressure one. Orange staining from irrigation, or from something metal left out on the slab, has to be treated. Pressure alone will not shift it, and pushing harder just etches the concrete around the stain.
Will it come out striped?
Not when it is done on a surface cleaner. Striping is what a wand leaves behind, because every pass has an edge and the overlaps show once the slab dries. There is more on that under pressure washing.
Usually the same visit
What gets added.
Sidewalk Cleaning
The path running off the drive to the front door. Doing one and not the other shows at the join.
Sidewalk Cleaning →Concrete Cleaning
Patio, pool deck and garage floor, at the same setting.
Concrete Cleaning →House Washing
The siding above it, soft washed at about 100 PSI.
House Washing →Where we wash
Towns this runs in.
Driveways get done everywhere 501 runs, out of Conway, Fairfield Bay and Heber Springs across three counties.
The technical side
More on cleaning a drive properly.
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Start here
Send a photo of the drive.
Stand at the road and take one shot. That is enough to price it.
Or look through the photographs of finished jobs first.