Fence cleaning that does not shred the wood
Wood fences are the surface most often ruined by pressure washing, because the fibers tear long before the growth comes off. We clean wood with solution and low pressure to keep the grain intact, and vinyl or aluminum with a method matched to what is actually staining it.
Reviewed
The problem this solves
A wood fence gone gray and green, or a vinyl fence with a stubborn dark line along the bottom rail.
Why pressure ruins a wood fence
Fence boards are thin, soft and usually weathered, so pressure raises the grain and tears the fibers instead of cleaning them. The fence looks bright for a season, then the roughened surface holds dirt and growth far better than it did before. The damage is the fuzzy texture left behind.
How we clean wood instead
A cleaning solution kills the algae and lifts the gray oxidation, dwells long enough to work, then rinses at low pressure. Where a fence is going to be stained afterwards, that matters twice: stain will not bond evenly to a surface that has been torn open by a pressure washer.
Vinyl, aluminum and that dark bottom line
The dark band along the bottom of a vinyl fence is soil splash and algae driven up by rain and irrigation, and it usually needs hand agitation rather than more chemical. Aluminum and wrought iron clean quickly, but chalking paint means the finish is failing, not dirty.
Both sides, and what is behind it
A fence has two faces and the shaded one is always worse, so a quote for one side is a quote for half the job. We also flag what is causing the staining: an irrigation head hitting the boards, a bed graded against the fence line, a downspout discharging along it.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS SERVICE
Fence cleaning questions
Can you clean a wood fence without damaging it?
Yes, by cleaning it chemically rather than mechanically. The solution does the work and the rinse is at low pressure. Any method that strips a weathered fence bright in one fast pass is removing wood fiber along with the growth.
Will cleaning make my old fence look new?
It removes the green and much of the gray, which is usually a dramatic difference. It cannot replace wood that has already weathered thin or reverse a board that has cupped. On an older fence we will tell you honestly which sections cleaning will not save.
Should I clean my fence before staining it?
Always, and the cleaning method decides how well the stain takes. Stain needs sound, open grain to bond to. A fence that has been pressure washed has a torn surface that soaks stain unevenly and blotches, which is why the prep matters more than the product.
Do you clean both sides of the fence?
We quote both sides by default, since the shaded face is nearly always the dirtier one. If access to a neighbor's side is not possible, we will tell you before starting rather than leaving you with a fence that is clean from one direction only.
Get fence cleaning scoped properly.
We inspect before we quote, so the price answers a defect we can show you rather than a guess.