Silver Falls is 63 lots off Placerville Street with a wider spread of construction dates than any single-builder Kuna subdivision, and parcels from 0.156 up to 0.38 acres. Older concrete is the defining factor here, because a twenty-year-old slab can be damaged by the treatment a new one shrugs off.
After enough Idaho freeze-thaw cycles, a concrete surface begins to scale: the top layer flakes away in thin sheets, exposing the aggregate beneath. On a slab that has already started, high pressure removes more of the loose surface, which makes the damage visibly worse rather than cleaning it. We check for scaling and for hollow-sounding areas before choosing a pressure, and on a deteriorating slab we deliberately work gentler and say plainly that cleaning will improve appearance without restoring a surface that has begun to fail.
The uncomfortable version of this conversation is that on some older Silver Falls driveways the best available outcome is clean but visibly worn, and no amount of pressure changes that. Telling you beforehand is the difference between a fair result and a disappointed customer, and it is why we look at the slab rather than quoting from the address. On the newer streets here none of this applies and the concrete cleans up like any other new slab.
Older Silver Falls streets have landscaping that has grown in, which most of Kuna does not, so the flatwork there carries things newer subdivisions do not: leaf tannin staining, which is a brown discolouration that leaches out of wet leaf litter left on concrete, plus algae and moss in shaded sections under canopy. Tannin is a stain within the surface rather than dirt on it, and moss in shade is a slip hazard that needs killing rather than displacing.
Untreated Boise-Kuna canal water carries dissolved iron, and Silver Falls lists pressurised irrigation among its amenities, so overspray on concrete is a given. Rust bonds into the pores as orange-brown staining, and it holds more tenaciously in older concrete because the surface has roughened and opened up over two decades, giving the iron more to key into. Older slabs therefore often need more rust treatment, not less, even where the sprinkler exposure has been similar.
Pressure washing is $0.20 per square foot of actual area, and with parcels from 0.156 to 0.38 acres the flatwork varies by more than two and a half times inside these 63 lots, so we measure on site. Siding is house washing at $0.18 per square foot as a soft wash, which matters more on older homes: older vinyl is more brittle and its caulk lines have opened, so high pressure drives water behind laps that no longer seal.
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No, and high pressure would make it worse by removing more of the loose surface. That is scaling from years of freeze-thaw cycles. We check for it before choosing a pressure and work gentler on a deteriorating slab. Cleaning improves appearance without restoring a failed surface.
Clean, but on some older Silver Falls slabs the best available outcome is clean and visibly worn. We tell you that before the work rather than after, because no amount of pressure changes it. On the newer streets here the concrete cleans up like any other new slab.
Leaf tannin. Wet leaf litter left on concrete leaches a brown discolouration into the surface, which is a stain within the concrete rather than dirt on it. The older Silver Falls streets with grown-in landscaping get this where the newer streets do not.
Older concrete has roughened and opened up over two decades, which gives the iron more surface to key into, so it bonds more tenaciously. Older slabs often need more rust treatment rather than less, even with similar sprinkler exposure.
It is a slip hazard, yes, and it needs killing rather than displacing. Blasting off the visible layer leaves the organism in the pores to re-establish within weeks. A solution that kills it keeps the surface non-slip much longer.
No, and less so than new siding. Older vinyl is more brittle and its caulk lines have opened over two decades, so high pressure drives water behind laps that no longer seal. Siding is a soft wash at $0.18 per square foot, quoted separately.
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