What is Soft Wash?
27 August 2021
Soft Wash is an important new category of exterior house and building cleaning. The point is to get a building clean without damaging the surfaces. Engineers, architects, builders and practical minded people are more and more aware that past methods of cleaning have been wearing out materials, and damaging them.
Soft Washing is an important step forward in reducing that wear and tear. Within that category, there are subsets.
Pressure Washers, for example, are the big bad boys of the damage we’re talking about, yet they are still commonly advertised and used by Soft Washers. At that point it’s up to the operator of the power washer as to how soft that soft wash really is. Other companies stick with using only gentle soap applicators, brushes and gentle rinses.
There’s a kind of brush that was developed for cleaning windows, commonly called a Tucker Pole. It is extendable up to 40 feet or so, and feeds water/soap solutions up to the brush, which can be used to gently agitate the surface while the cleaning agent is gently flowing. A huge advantage to this is that is truly soft washing! A disadvantage is that, at heights beyond two stories, the brush is hard to control, and it’s difficult for the operator to see what may have been missed. My wife and I live on the fourth flow of a condo, and the contractor who cleans the exterior and windows use this system. Standing on our sundeck, I can easily find spots that have been missed by the brush. It’s still far better than power washing. Pressure washing works more thoroughly, but has earned a bad reputation of damaging the important surface of the cladding and various building exterior products.
ROTban entered this industry from a different perspective. We developed our products and services from the starting point of a focus on destructive biotic communities, which damage homes and buildings when they do their natural job of breaking nonliving things down into soil. We have focussed on keeping these destructive organisms from damaging building products. Starting with spores of algae, they quickly form a community of moss, mold, mildew, fungus algae and lichen. These work together to make a simple life form “garden” that works to break down our dwellings, especially in temperate, semi rainforest conditions like Greater Vancouver. We succeeded at getting rid of them very well, without causing any damage in the process. We were delighted to find that the algaecide we developed also cleans ordinary dust and dirt. So we’ve been busy for decades cleaning roofs, siding, windows on homes, commercial buildings and institutions.
We have a gentle cleaner that bonds to the surface and keeps cleaning for years whenever conditions are moist. Next, in our efforts to apply the product on roofs without the weight and equipment typically used, we found a system that delivers the gentle product in a gentle way, at a distance. This team of gentle, long-lasting product and gentle application hit the bulls-eye of Soft Wash. Of course, we use brushes as needed on siding and windows, but most of our gentle cleaning is touchless, except for a gentle stream of algaecide cleaner and water! Then we added follow-up inspections and monitoring service. We call it Ultra Soft Wash.
This is an exciting breakthrough in exterior cleaning. Roofs, siding, windows all over the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley have been experiencing the Softest Soft Wash for decades now. By clicking this link, you can get a quote and perhaps see the economic and aesthetic value of our service for yourself.
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