Brad Forrest, Owner

When it comes to my services, many customers have assumed that they can’t be done in the rain simply because they are outside. However, this is not entirely true (spoiler: window washing is the only one that can’t be done in the rain at all). However, the weather does affect all 3 of my services in different ways. I’m going to break it down into the three categories to discuss how the weather affects each of them.

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     Power Washing

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When it comes to power washing, the biggest factor that comes into play in terms of the weather is the temperature. When it starts to get below 40°, it can damage the pumps of the power washer and cause the water to freeze, so it is not safe to wash at that temperature. Other than if it’s too cold, the weather doesn’t matter too much. Many customers are surprised to find out that the power washer works perfectly fine in the rain. It can even help because if we’re using bleach, we won’t have to water the plants down before and after power washing as this will be taken care of for us by Mother Nature.

     Window Washing

When it comes to window washing, the biggest factor in terms of weather is the rain. Our microfiber cloths need to be dry in order to do the windows properly, so any amount of rain will be an issue. We also typically don’t work when it is below 32° because the soap and water could freeze, but this can be mitigated by mixing the soap with antifreeze. There are several other situations with the weather that can affect our window washing, but they can be mitigated by using certain techniques. For example, extremely hot and dry weather will cause the soap and water to dry up extremely quickly on the window so that we can no longer wipe it off with the squeegee. To deal with this, we put the wet foam squeegee directly in front of the rubber squeegee so that the squeegee wipes off the water and soap almost immediately after the window gets wet. 

     Gutter cleaning

When it comes to gutter cleaning, the weather matters the least out of the three services. There is no time when it is too cold to clean gutters and there is no issue with power washing in the rain. However, there is an issue when it becomes so cold that the liquid debris in the gutter freezes up. It doesn’t freeze up a specific temperature because is affected by the angle at which the sun hits the gutters. When this does happen, a flathead screwdriver may be used to remove the ice if it is only a small amount. If it’s a larger amount of ice, then we would likely reschedule the job as it would take too long to justify the price of the job.