The blocks around Main and State Street hold Star's oldest walls: brick storefronts and wood-frame farmhouses that predate the 1997 re-incorporation, mixed with newer hardie and vinyl infill behind them. Those surfaces don't wash the same, and the sprinkler line along the bottom three feet is what we get called about most.
Most of Star is one story: vinyl or hardie lap on a house built after 2005. Downtown isn't. Within a few blocks you have soft early-1900s brick with lime mortar joints on the Main Street buildings, painted wood lap and cedar on the older farmhouses around the core, and newer hardie or vinyl on the infill homes that filled the gaps between them. Each takes a different pressure and a different dwell time. Old brick and old mortar get the lowest pressure we run, applied and rinsed from the ground, because a pressure tip held on a soft mortar joint will scour it out and you'll be tuckpointing instead of washing. Vinyl tolerates more but shows streaks if it's rinsed top-down carelessly. We look at the wall before we pick a setting.
The single most common thing we're called about downtown is the band of staining across the lower siding and lower brick where sprinkler heads throw against the wall. Two separate stains live in that band. The white or gray crust is calcium from our hard valley water, and the orange-brown streaking is iron, which shows up on older lots still pulling from a well or an older irrigation line. Here's the honest part: a soft wash removes the dirt and biological growth on top of it, but it does not remove iron staining. Iron needs a dedicated acid-based treatment, and on porous old brick it may lighten rather than disappear. If we see iron on your walk-around we'll tell you before we quote, not after we wash.
The old lots downtown have the tree cover the new subdivisions won't have for another thirty years, and that shade is what feeds algae. On a north-facing wall that never gets direct sun, or on any elevation sitting under a mature maple or cottonwood, you get a green or black film that people mistake for dirt. It isn't dirt, it's living, and that's why scrubbing it or blasting it comes back within a season. A soft wash uses a cleaning solution that kills the organism at the root, then a low-pressure rinse carries it off. Done that way, a north wall downtown usually stays clear a full year or better. Pressure alone on that same wall buys you about two months.
Walk the south and west elevations of an older painted house near the core and rub your hand on the siding. If it comes away powdery white, that's chalking: the paint binder broken down by decades of Idaho sun, and it is very common on the pre-1980s houses around Main Street. Washing removes the loose chalk, and the wall will look noticeably better and take paint better afterward. What washing will not do is bring the color back, because the fade is oxidation in the paint film itself. If your goal is even color on a chalked south wall, you need paint, and the wash is the prep step. We'd rather say that up front than have you pay for a wash expecting a repaint result.
House washing runs $0.18 per square foot, soft-wash, safe for all siding, measured on wall area rather than floor plan. Downtown adds a wrinkle the subdivisions don't have: buildings sit close to the sidewalk and to each other, so we plan overspray, plant protection, and where water runs before we start, and on the Main Street storefronts we work before opening or after close. We're fully insured and locally owned, founded in 2025 by Hunter Stevens and Ethan Seusy, with 115+ Google reviews at 4.9 stars. Same-day and next-day slots come open regularly. Monthly and Quarterly memberships are available with no contract, and every job carries our 7-Day Rain Guarantee. Call (208) 453-6760 and we'll quote it off photos or in person.
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Not the way we do it. The risk on early-1900s brick is the lime mortar in the joints, which is softer than modern mortar and will erode under a concentrated pressure tip. We soft wash instead: cleaning solution applied at low pressure, dwell time, then a wide-fan rinse. No tip held close to a joint, and we work from the ground rather than dragging equipment across the sidewalk.
Probably not on its own. That orange is iron from irrigation water, and it's a mineral stain, not surface dirt. Soft washing removes the grime and growth sitting over it, but iron needs a separate acid-based treatment to break down. On vinyl and hardie that treatment usually works well. On older porous brick it typically lightens the stain rather than erasing it. We'll tell you which you're looking at during the walk-around.
We can remove the chalk, but not the fade. Chalking is the paint binder breaking down under sun exposure, which is common on the older painted houses near downtown. Washing takes off the powdery layer and gives you a clean, uniform surface that holds new paint much better. The faded color itself is oxidation inside the paint film, and only repainting brings that back. Washing is the right first step if repainting is the plan.
Yes, but with a smaller expectation. We wash at low pressure, which will not create peeling, though it will carry off paint that was already lifting and about to fail. That's usually a good thing before a repaint. For homes built before 1978, loose paint can be lead-bearing, so tell us the build era when you call and we'll plan containment and runoff accordingly rather than treating it like a new build.
It's $0.18 per square foot of wall area, soft-wash, safe for all siding. We measure the actual elevations, not the home's floor plan, so a tall two-story with a lot of wall costs more than a wide single story of the same listed square footage. Storefronts and mixed-use buildings on Main and State are quoted the same way. Iron stain treatment, if you need it, is quoted separately.
Once a year is right for most, and here's when it isn't. If your north side is still clear and the only marks are the sprinkler band, you don't need a full house wash yet, you need the sprinkler heads adjusted so they stop hitting the wall. Fix that first and you'll go longer between washes. Homes under heavy tree cover on the older downtown lots tend to need it annually regardless.
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