Stand at the corner of a Morris Hill lot in July and one house tells you two different stories. The north wall under the maples is going green along the bottom courses, and the west wall the afternoon sun hits has gone chalky pale. Add the white sprinkler band across the brick and that is this neighborhood's whole siding problem in one walk-around.
These houses went up between roughly 1946 and 1962, so the original skin was painted wood lap over a brick or brick-veneer wainscot, and plenty of blocks still have exactly that. Everything else came later. Aluminum siding went on in the seventies, vinyl in the nineties, and hardie on the houses that got flipped in the last ten years. A handful of the oldest ones still wear brittle cement shingle siding that should never see a pressure tip, period. That mix is why we walk every elevation before the pump comes on. The setting that is fine on new vinyl will drive water up under seventy-year-old lap joints, and the dwell time that clears algae off brick is longer than what chalked aluminum wants. We are matching the wash to the wall, not running one recipe around the house.
Almost every irrigated lot here has it: a chalky band across the bottom two or three feet of the brick or the lap, worst on whichever wall a head throws at. Bench water runs hard, around 10 to 13 grains, and a fixed spray hitting the same course of brick five mornings a week for twenty years bakes that calcium into the surface. Here is the honest part. Soft washing lifts the dirt, algae and dust bound up in that band, and the wall will look dramatically better. The mineral deposit itself is a different problem. It comes off with a masonry-safe acid treatment, and on old mortar or chalked paint we will sometimes tell you not to risk it. We say which one you have before we quote, not after. The real fix is a deflector or a lower arc on that head.
Bench ranches were built with three or four feet of eave at most, and the maples and lindens that went in with the houses now shade whole north elevations all day. Add the junipers and yews planted against the foundation in the fifties, still pressed to the siding, and that wall never fully dries. What grows there is algae and mildew, a living thing. Blasting it knocks the color off and it is back in a season. A soft-wash mix with proper dwell kills it at the root so it stays gone. The south and west walls have the opposite issue. Rub your palm across the siding. If your hand comes back white, that is chalk, which is oxidized paint or a spent aluminum finish, not dirt. Washing removes the chalk layer and evens the wall out. It will not bring gloss back. That is a paint job, and we will say so.
No pressure tip touches your siding. We apply a cleaning solution, let it dwell, and rinse at low pressure, working the rinse downward across the laps instead of up underneath them. That matters more here than in a newer subdivision, because seventy-year-old wood lap has open butt joints and dried-out caulk around the window trim, and water forced up behind it lands in the sheathing where nobody sees it for two years. We pre-wet and rinse the foundation plantings, because those old junipers are not replaceable at that size. Gravel-drive splatter on the bottom foot of the detached garage out by the alley is the same job and cheap to add while we are already set up. We bring our own water and only use your spigot if you offer it.
House washing is $0.18 per square foot, soft-wash, safe on every siding type on this street including old painted lap and cement shingle. On a typical single-story Morris Hill ranch that is a straightforward number we can give you over the phone once we know rough footprint and whether it is one story or a story and a half. Memberships run monthly or quarterly with no contract, which most people here use to keep the shaded north side from getting away from them. Every job carries our 7-Day Rain Guarantee. We hold same-day and next-day slots Monday through Saturday and we are on the Bench most weeks, so a Morris Hill address rarely waits. Call (208) 453-6760 with your address.
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Not by itself. That band is calcium left by hard Bench water, closer to scale in a kettle than to dirt. Soft washing removes everything sitting in and on it, which usually makes a big visible difference, but the mineral stays. Removing it takes a masonry-safe acid treatment, and on soft old mortar or chalking paint we may recommend leaving it alone. We tell you which before we quote.
Rub your palm on it. If your hand comes back white, that is oxidized paint or a worn aluminum finish, most common on the south and west walls out here. Washing takes the loose chalk off and makes the wall look even instead of blotchy, which is a real improvement. It does not restore sheen, and no amount of pressure will. At that point you are looking at repainting, and we will say so instead of selling you a wash twice.
Yes, because we soft-wash. Solution, dwell time, low-pressure rinse. Pressure is what splinters old wood lap, cracks brittle cement shingle and forces water up behind the courses into the sheathing. On cement shingle in particular we go gentle and never scrub it. If we find failed caulk or an open joint while we are working the wall, we point it out so you can get it sealed before the next wash.
Most houses on these blocks do fine every two to three years for the full exterior. The exception is the north elevation under the tree canopy, which regrows algae faster because it never dries out. Plenty of people here have us hit that one wall on the off years. If the sunny sides still look clean and only the shady side is turning, you do not need a whole-house wash yet.
Yes, and we book it that way regularly in this neighborhood. There is no reason to pay for four walls when one is the problem. The one thing to know is that a freshly washed north wall next to a chalked, sun-faded west wall will look different at the corner. If that will bother you, wash both. If it is a fence-line wall nobody sees, do the one and save the money.
A local company started in 2025 by Hunter Stevens and Ethan Seusy, based at 6242 N Sweet Vly Pl in Meridian and working the Boise Bench most weeks. Fully insured and locally owned, rated 4.9 stars across 115+ Google reviews. Memberships are monthly or quarterly with no contract, and every job carries a 7-Day Rain Guarantee. Call (208) 453-6760 for same-day or next-day availability.
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