Walk one block off Boise Avenue and the siding changes every third house: painted cedar on a 1930s bungalow, wide lap on a 1955 ranch, vinyl over the top of both on the rentals. Add flood irrigation and forty-foot maples and you get three different stains on three different surfaces.
The older blocks here went up in the 1920s through the 1940s, so the original skin is painted wood lap or cedar shingle, usually sitting on a brick or river-rock foundation skirt, with stucco showing up on porch piers and on a scattering of whole fronts. The 1950s infill ranches came with wide painted lap. Since then a lot of these houses picked up a vinyl or aluminum retrofit right over the original wood, and you can spot it by the J-channel running up the corners. Rentals and flips added hardie in the last twenty years. That mix is the whole job. Vinyl takes a stronger soft-wash solution and rinses clean in one pass. Chalking painted wood takes a weaker mix and twice the rinse. Stucco grabs solution down in the texture and has to be flooded off, not misted off, or it dries streaky and you see every wand stroke from the sidewalk.
Plenty of yards in South Boise Village still hold ditch rights and get flood-irrigated on a rotation, and almost everybody else runs sprinklers off Boise tap that carries 10 to 13 grains of hardness. Both leave a band on the bottom three or four feet of siding: gritty tan silt where irrigation splashes off a wet yard onto the wall, and a chalky white mineral crust dried on top of it. If your water has iron in it, add an orange fan-shaped stain spreading out from wherever a head throws at the house. Silt and fresh mineral wash off in the normal soft wash. Set-in iron staining does not, and no amount of pressure moves it, because it is a chemical stain sitting in the paint or stucco rather than dirt sitting on it. That one needs a dedicated rust treatment quoted separately, and we would rather tell you that at the estimate than at the invoice.
These are narrow old lots with houses twelve to fifteen feet apart and street trees that are now well past the rooflines. A north or east wall in that shade barely dries between spring rains and irrigation sets, and it grows a green-black algae film that starts in the lap shadows and works outward. That is organic, it comes off with a soft wash, and pressure alone will not kill it, so it grows back in months. The south and west walls have the opposite problem. Decades of Idaho sun oxidize the paint until the surface chalks, and you get a dull, streaky wall that leaves white powder on your hand. Washing takes the loose chalk off and evens the color, and it is the correct prep before a repaint, but it will not restore paint that has already given up its binder. If the chalk is heavy, washing buys you a better-looking summer, not a new paint job.
Everything on these blocks older than 1978 is likely carrying lead paint somewhere in the stack, and old painted lap that is already cupped and checked does not need a pressure wand driving water up under the boards. We soft wash: low pressure, cleaning solution doing the work, controlled rinse, and we keep the flood off soffit vents, window putty lines and any spot where siding meets an unsealed trim joint. Honest note that costs us jobs: if your walls are only dusty, skip it. Dust rinses off with a garden hose and the wash is wasted money. What actually justifies a house wash here is green growth on the shaded side, the irrigation band along the bottom, aphid honeydew off the maples, or prep before paint. If you send photos, we will tell you which of those you have and whether it can wait a season.
House washing is $0.18 per square foot on a soft-wash setting that is safe for painted wood, cedar, stucco, hardie, vinyl and aluminum. Rust and heavy mineral treatment on siding is quoted separately after we see it, because it is a different chemical and a different amount of labor. Pressure washing for driveways, walks and alley aprons runs $0.20 per square foot. Gutters start at $199, hand-scooped rather than blown into the beds. Window cleaning starts at $199 and is priced by pane count. Memberships come Monthly or Quarterly with no contract, Quarterly saves $100 per cleaning, and every job carries our 7-Day Rain Guarantee. Same-day and next-day slots are usually open, Monday through Saturday, 7am to 7pm. Reflekt is locally owned, started in 2025 by Hunter Stevens and Ethan Seusy, fully insured, 4.9 stars across 115+ Google reviews. Call (208) 453-6760.
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Ours will not, because we do not pressure wash painted siding. A house wash here is a soft wash: low pressure, cleaning solution doing the lifting, and a controlled rinse. On pre-1978 paint that is already checked or cupped, a high-pressure wand blasts chips loose and drives water behind the boards. If your paint is failing badly enough that it comes off under a soft wash, it was going to come off this year anyway, and we will show you before we continue.
Because it is a living organism, not dirt. North and east walls on these narrow lots sit in shade from the neighbor's house and the street maples, and they stay damp through spring rain and every irrigation set. A rinse knocks the color off and leaves the roots. Our soft wash uses a solution that kills the growth rather than just rinsing it, which is why it stays clean noticeably longer, but a permanently shaded damp wall will always want it more often than the sunny side.
Partly, and here is the honest version. That powder is chalking, sun-oxidized paint releasing its binder, and it is heaviest on south and west walls in this neighborhood. Washing removes the loose chalk, evens out the streaking and makes the house look considerably better. It does not restore the paint. If chalking is heavy, treat the wash as prep, because paint will not bond over chalk and every painter worth hiring will want the walls washed first anyway.
Sometimes, and not with pressure. That orange fan is iron out of irrigation or ditch water, and it is a chemical stain in the paint or stucco rather than dirt on top of it. It needs a rust-specific treatment, which we quote separately after seeing it. Light staining usually clears. Years of a head hitting the same wall can leave a shadow behind. Either way, moving or re-aiming that head is worth more than anything in our truck.
Yes, and no, if it is done right. Stucco on these older bungalows is typically traditional three-coat over lath, which handles a soft wash fine. The risks are pressure, which chews the texture and can open hairline cracks, and under-rinsing, which leaves solution in the texture and dries as streaks. We run low pressure and flood the rinse rather than misting it. Cracks, failed patches and open trim joints get pointed out before we start, not washed into.
Most homes in South Boise Village do well on once a year, timed after the irrigation season winds down in fall or before a spring repaint. Shaded north walls under the big maples sometimes want a mid-season touch on that side only, which we will price as a partial rather than a whole house. If all you have is summer dust, wait. Every wash carries our 7-Day Rain Guarantee, so weather right after is covered.
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