Vinyl Siding Maintenance

Once the new vinyl siding is installed the house looks always fresh and rejuvenated.  Vinyl siding is a virtually maintenance free cladding, but after seven or ten years has passed you may want to show some love to the siding of your house. Sometimes it takes more years for the siding to get dirty, but it all depends on the environment that you have around your house. Many trees and bushes give the most troubles to the exterior  walls of your house. After seven years or so you are going to see some moss, mildew or algae. When you live   in the towns of West Windsor, Hamilton or Willingboro of the Garden State of New Jersey, then you may have a lot of trees that peacefully grow around your house. Trees are necessary part of the  facade of the house, as long as they do not grow close to the walls of the house, you should not be worried about them.

So anyway lets see what is the best way to maintain the vinyl siding of the house. 

•  The most innocent way to take care about your siding is to use soft brush and soap to gently wash the walls of the house. For better results start washing the siding from the bottom of the wall and work up, this way you can save time and put less efforts into doing the job. When you get to the top, start washing off all the soap with a water hose. 
• The other way to clean the siding from algae, mildew or moss is to use power washing. That's may seem the best way to do it, but it is not the most safe to use. You should check the siding manufacturer instructions, before using the power wash. Some siding manufacturers do not recommend using any type of power washing. When power washing the old siding, make sure that you lower the pressure of your power wash, otherwise you may damage the siding panels. It happened a few times in Hamilton and Trenton NJ, when our customers, that we installed siding about eight years ago, used very high power washer pressure and made some cracks in siding, so we had to stop by and fix it.  
• Do Not do power washing of vinyl siding in winter time. Last year we got a call from a homeowner in West Windsor NJ about some siding cracks, after he power washed it. We don't know why would he do it in winter time when temperatures are below freezing, but at this kind of weather vinyl siding becomes fragile and should not be disturbed under any circumstances. Do power washing in summer time when the temperature is right and you can enjoy it while doing it. 
• Good cleaning solutions for vinyl siding are Simple Green, Armor All cleaners. When you buy a cleaner detergent just make sure that it does not contain chlorine bleach. It is always better to test the siding cleaner on a small spot of the wall. If no siding discoloration happened, then you can use this cleaner on the whole house. 

   Maintaining your siding is easy and does not require big investment from you. It is possible to do it yourself or you can hire a power washing professional. For an average size of the house, the power washing price ranges between $100-$200. Once you made your initial investment into a new siding you should not put any big amounts of cash into your house, but enjoy the pleasant return on your investment.