Why You Shouldn't Use High Pressure on Your Home's Paintwork (and What to Do Instead)

This is probably the single most important thing I can tell a homeowner: high pressure and painted exteriors don't mix. I get called out often enough to fix the aftermath of someone's driveway machine turned on a wall, and it's always the same story.

What actually happens

Painted surfaces, render and weatherboard aren't built to take the force a pressure washer puts out. Point it at a wall and you're not just removing dirt — you're stripping the paint film itself, and driving water in behind cladding and render where it has nowhere to go. Once water's behind the surface, you're looking at bubbling or peeling down the track.

How I actually get concrete and pavers clean instead

High pressure has its place — driveways, paths, pool surrounds, tennis courts, all the hard surfaces that can take it. Even there, I put a chlorine solution down first and let it sit. You can watch it work: green mould turns brown, black mould turns purple, and that colour change is the cue that it's ready to blast off. Doing it that way means less pressure, less time, and a cleaner result than just going in cold with the machine.

What to do on your house instead

Soft washing — low pressure plus the right biodegradable detergent — does the same job on paintwork that high pressure does on concrete, just without the damage. It's a genuinely different technique for a different surface, not a weaker version of the same thing.

If your cleaner can't tell you what pressure they're running or what's in their mix, that's worth a second opinion before they start. For the fuller picture, see soft washing vs pressure cleaning.