House Washing in Boise Heights, Boise, Idaho

Old paint and new stucco don't get washed the same way

Walk one block here and you'll pass a 1930s bungalow in painted wood clapboard, a 1950s ranch in cedar shingle, and a newer infill build in stucco or Hardie fiber-cement. That mix matters more than the street it's on. Old painted wood can have decades of paint layers with hairline checking, and a wand at driveway pressure will find every weak spot, strip a flaking patch down to bare wood, or drive water behind a loose board. Stucco is porous and has the same problem from a different angle — pressure forces water behind the coat instead of running off it. We soft-wash everything on this street the same way: low pressure, a cleaner rated for the surface, dwell time to break the film loose, then a rinse. It's the one method that's safe on wood, stucco, and Hardie in the same pass, and it's why we quote by square foot instead of a flat per-house rate.

The foothills grit settles at the foundation line first

The dirt up here doesn't blow in off a field the way it does out in the valley — it comes down the road. Snowmelt and storm runoff pull decomposed granite off the slopes above Hulls Gulch and Crane Creek, wash it down the pitch of these streets, and every passing car throws a fan of pale, sharp grit onto the lower two or three feet of siding and up onto foundation trim. On painted wood it looks like a dingy gray-tan band right above grade; on stucco it reads as a dull haze in the texture. It's not mold and it's not mildew, and a garden hose won't move it once it's dried on. Soft-washing lifts it clean off without scrubbing paint or texture off with it, which matters most on the older wood siding where the finish is thinner than it looks.

North and east walls stay damp longest and go green first

Cold air drains downhill out of Hulls Gulch and Crane Creek overnight, and it runs across the north- and east-facing walls of these houses before it clears the block. Those elevations get less direct sun to dry them out, so on lots with foundation planting or a tight side-yard against the neighbor's fence, that shade and moisture is exactly what algae needs. It shows up as a green-to-black film low on the wall, often worse on painted wood than on stucco because the grain holds moisture longer. Left alone through a full season it does work into the finish and gets harder to lift the next time around, so if you've only ever had the street-facing side of the house done, the uphill or shaded elevation is usually where the actual problem is.

Chalky, faded paint on the south side isn't a dirt problem

The south- and west-facing walls up here fade differently than they stain. Idaho's UV load breaks down old exterior paint over years, and on a lot of these bungalows the pigment is chalking — you'll see it as a dull, powdery haze that rubs off on your hand in a lighter color than the wall. That's the paint itself wearing out, not soil sitting on top of it. Soft-washing pulls off the actual grime and pollen layered over the chalking and the wall will look noticeably better, but it won't bring back the original color or stop the chalking from continuing. If a south wall still looks flat and dusty right after a wash, that side is due for repaint, not another cleaning, and we'll say so on the estimate rather than charge you to wash it again next year.

How we wash it, and what it runs

Soft-wash house washing is $0.18 a square foot and covers painted wood, cedar shingle, stucco, and Hardie the same way — low pressure, no method that risks stripping old paint or forcing water behind a porous coat. We price off the home's actual exterior square footage, so a two-story bungalow with dormers runs different than a single-story infill on the same lot size, and we'll flag anything that's chalking or genuinely worn paint rather than dirt before we start. Memberships run Monthly or Quarterly with no contract, and the 7-Day Rain Guarantee covers a re-clean if rain marks the work within a week. Reflekt was founded in 2025 by Hunter Stevens and Ethan Seusy, is locally owned and fully insured, and holds 4.9 stars across 115+ Google reviews. Same-day and next-day slots are usually open — call (208) 453-6760.