What is Soft Washing
What in the world is soft washing? Is it just another useless invention to the cleaning industry? Do we really need Soft Washing? What can it do?
The Why
Although Power Washing has numerous abilities and is your magic wand for cleaning grime in tough areas, your soft washing wand is a little more magical! The soft touch has the upper hand when it comes to cleaning your roof. Over time your shingles accumulate algae stains that look terrible if you don´t remove it.
The purpose of shingle roofs is to make the roofing structure more resistant to the outdoor elements and thus protecting the inside of your home. Your roof consists of fiberglass sheets, petroleum adhesive and ceramic or stone aggregate. The shingles go on top of the petroleum based tarpaper which protects the deck of the roof from moisture. Then you have the roofing aggregate that is pressed into the hot asphalt or petroleum-based adhesive and is placed on top of the shingles. This material is what protects the shingles from the attacks of nature and helps maintain the roof´s lifecycle. It protects it from rain, storms and UV rays. However in time this aggregate completes its purpose as in time degrades over a period of many years.
In places where hail storms often occur, the integrity of the aggregate is compromised as pieces can fall off. Now imagine using a power washer to try to take away algae stains on your roof. The pressure can be the same as or just as worse when nature attacks. Leaving your roof with more early repairs and actually can invalidate any warranties to your roof if you used pressure washing.
Finally, one huge negative when using a pressure washer and therefore we need a soft washer that is strong enough to take those stains away but gentle enough that it doesn´t take away the integrity of the roofing system.
The Magic Touch
Soft washing consists of using chemicals to clean and leave behind inhibitors to prevent fungus from coming back. You can spray water and bleach to take those ugly stains away, however very quickly the fungus will appear again as bleach just made it clear so you don´t see the fungus. With soft washing, it is a very effective way to take away mold, mildew, algae, fungus, bacteria, viruses, germs, mosses, lichens, insects and organic soiling. A power washer could easily strip these organic-based stains from a building´s surface but it can leave more damage than before.
The soft washing technique can be viewed as pest-control. It needs to be sprayed onto the whole surface to be effective. The chemical does all the killing and cleaning of a microbe. It is needed when you want to eliminate organic material. As for the pressure cleaner, it is super for inorganic material. In this aspect the soft cleaning wand wins hands down.
Not only you can use soft washing on roofs, the window is wide open to any surface that has organics stains and is a delicate surface where power washing can easily damage it.
The Equipment
Hopefully you never needed to call pest control to get rid of creatures like roaches in your home. Similar to getting rid of pests, you need to treat the whole surface or roof if you’re infected with microbial invaders. Soft washing not only clears the surface but goes deeper to the small cracks and crevices which make this method long lasting than power washing.
The equipment looks similar to pest-control equipment. You have a tank, a pump, the hose and a spray gun. More emphasis is to where you spray the chemical since it is the chemical that does all the work to treat the surface by cleaning, removing the organic stain and leaving behind it´s trail to prevent microbial invaders from growing quickly.
Now there are many chemical solutions that are biodegradable making soft washing environmentally friendly. This method also uses one-third of water compared to power washing and results in less cleaning expenses as you don´t have to call your roof cleaner very often.
The More Peaceful Method
You can use soft washing on many other surfaces and is another great cleaning option. Instead of hearing the pressure cleaner blast its way, you have the option to use the more subtle way of a soft washing spray that delivers when you want to get rid of organic material in any surface.