Pradera has more concrete per house than almost anywhere else in Caldwell — wide Toll Brothers driveways, third and fourth bays built out for RVs, and long side approaches off Homedale Road. All of it is new, light-colored, and sitting downwind of open farm ground.
We price flat concrete at twenty cents a square foot — driveway, front walk, back patio, RV pad, all the same rate. A standard three-car Pradera driveway measures somewhere around 800 to 1,000 square feet, so figure $160 to $200. Add the RV bay approach and the apron out to the street and you are usually in the $250 to $350 range for the whole front of the house. Back patios on these lots tend to run 300 to 500 square feet. We measure on site before we start, not off a guess, and we tell you the number before the machine turns on. Nothing gets added mid-job. If you want the driveway now and the patio next visit, that is fine — there is no minimum square footage penalty for splitting it up.
Most of Pradera's flatwork was poured recently, and fresh concrete brings a specific set of marks: laitance haze from an over-troweled surface, white efflorescence blooming up through the slab as it cures, and the chalky drip lines under stucco corners where the builder's crew rinsed tools. Efflorescence is the honest one. It is mineral salt migrating out of the concrete itself, and washing it off does not stop it — it comes back until the slab finishes curing, usually over the first year or two. We will clean it, and it will look sharp, but we tell you up front that a second bloom is normal and not a failed job. Anyone who promises efflorescence will never return has not poured much concrete.
Half the concrete complaints we get in south Caldwell are rust — orange fan-shaped arcs where a lawn head throws across the driveway edge, or a rusty rectangle under a spot the sprinkler puddles. That is iron in the water, not dirt, and it has soaked into the top layer of the slab. You can run 4,000 PSI over it all afternoon and it will still be orange, and you will etch the surface trying. Rust needs a chemical pull — an oxalic-based treatment, dwell time, then a rinse. We handle that as a separate step, and it works on most of what we see, though deep multi-season staining on a rough broom finish sometimes only lightens rather than disappears. We will tell you which one you are looking at before you pay for it.
Pradera sits south of Homedale Road with open ag ground west and south of it, and the prevailing west wind carries fine alkaline field silt straight onto every horizontal surface. It does not look like dirt. It looks like the concrete simply went a shade darker over two summers, which is why homeowners are surprised when we cut a test strip and the clean line is three shades lighter. The gravel side approaches a lot of these lots use for RV and trailer access feed the same thing — every trip in and out grinds rock dust onto the driveway, and irrigation water sets it. A surface cleaner pulls it evenly. What we avoid is wand striping, those zebra bands you see on driveways done freehand by someone in a hurry.
Not everything on these houses takes full pressure. Paver patios and the paver entry aprons Toll Brothers used on several Pradera elevations will lose their joint sand if you hit the seams hard, and once the sand is gone the pavers start to shift and weeds move in. We clean pavers at reduced pressure and let you know if the joints need re-sanding after. Stucco skirting, LP-style siding, and painted trim get soft-washed with a low-pressure detergent application, not blasted. Same for the gutter exteriors when you add those on. The goal is clean concrete and intact everything else — and on newer homes with tight builder warranties, that distinction is worth more than raw power.
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It is not too new to clean, but it is too new for aggressive work. Fresh concrete keeps curing for months, and high PSI on a young slab can open the surface and leave it rougher and dirtier long term. We drop the pressure and let a surface cleaner and detergent do the work instead. If your slab was poured within about 60 days, we would rather wait — call us and we will tell you honestly to hold off rather than take the job early.
Usually most of it. Rust from irrigation iron has soaked into the concrete, so it needs an oxalic treatment with dwell time rather than pressure. On a smooth finish with one or two seasons of staining, it typically comes out clean. On a rough broom finish that has been staining for years, expect it to lighten significantly rather than vanish. We will look at yours and tell you which case it is before quoting the rust step.
Partly, and it depends on age. A fresh spill that has not fully soaked in usually lifts with a degreaser, dwell, and hot rinse. A stain that has been sitting through a couple of Idaho summers has migrated deep into the slab and will fade rather than disappear — pressure alone does nothing to it. We are straight about this before we start so you are not paying to be disappointed.
Most Pradera homes look right on a once-a-year driveway and patio wash, usually late spring after tillage dust settles or early fall after harvest. Homes on the west-facing edge of the neighborhood, or with a gravel RV approach feeding grit onto the slab, sometimes want it twice. If your concrete still looks even and light, it does not need us yet — a test strip will tell you in thirty seconds.
We clean whatever the homeowner or the HOA hires us to clean. On a homeowner job we do your driveway, front walk, entry, and patio. If your HOA wants the shared walks and common concrete handled, they can book that separately and we will quote it by square footage the same way. We do not touch common-area concrete on a private job without someone authorizing it.
Yes, we pull from an outside hose bib for pressure washing — it is a small amount relative to running your sprinklers, and we will let you know before we hook up. Window work is different: that runs off pure deionized water from our own system. If your spigot is frozen shut or the RV is parked over the one we need, tell us at booking and we will plan the setup around it.
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