Soft Washing and Renew Crew’s Alternative From time to time we receive a few questions from homeowners on a method of cleaning outdoor surfaces called soft washing. We at Renew Crew don’t offer soft washing due to our company’s goal of cleaning and protecting all surfaces in the most environmentally friendly way possible and soft washing, in most cases, doesn’t reflect our goal. So what is soft washing? Soft washing uses strong chemicals to clean exterior surfaces instead of cleaner and water pressure like we do. Many soft washing companies use industrial strength bleach called sodium hypochlorite to clean the surfaces. This type of liquid bleach is twice as strong as household bleach. We at Renew Crew pride ourselves on not using bleach on exterior surfaces because it is known to kill most living things, including plants and we don’t want our work to negatively impact a clients’ landscaping. Some soft washing companies will have an extra person on each crew to continuously rinse everything so the plants won’t be affected. Bleach also doesn’t clean away the mold and mildew on the surface, it just kills it. After learning this, it reminded me of when I had my roof cleaned several years ago. The service provider told me that they would kill everything on the roof, but it would stay on the surface until a heavy rain. Knowing what I know now, he used a soft wash method. While the mold and mildew were killed and a lighter color on my roof (my house smelled like a pool for a week), it didn’t look clean until two weeks later when a heavy rain finally washed it away. At Renew Crew, we use a low gauge pressure wash to rinse away everything on the surface not only to make it look better, but it also allows us to know that everything is gone before we go on to protect the surface. The biggest differentiator between Renew Crew and other pressure washing companies is that we take our cleaning to the next level by protecting the surfaces from the harsh outdoor elements. We aren’t confident that we can do that in an environmentally way by soft washing the surface. If you have any questions, please contact your local Renew Crew office. August 30, 2013 · Cleaning Outdoor Surfaces, Industry News, outdoor maintenane, Pressure Cleaning, Renew Crew, and Renew Crew Clean a