LESLIE: John in Minnesota needs some help cleaning siding. Tell us what kind of siding you’ve got.
JOHN: Hi. I have steel siding.
TOM: And what’s going on with the siding?
JOHN: Well, I have a white house. It just looks dirty. And it’s – yeah, I want something to spray on it to clean it and kind of do a spray and forget, no power washer.
TOM: OK. Are you talking about Wet & Forget? Wet & Forget is for mold, mildew, moss and algae. Is that what’s on the siding?
JOHN: No, it’s just standard dirt.
TOM: Well, the nice thing about a pressure washer is that you can get to tall places without a ladder. Short of that, you’re going to have to use a good detergent and a scrub brush on a long sort of broom handle. There’s no easy way to do this, John. If you don’t want to use the power-cleaning tools, you’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way with a lot of elbow grease.
JOHN: OK. That sums up my question.
TOM: Alright. Well, that’s basically it. You need to get up there with soap and water and brush and scrub it gently. If you are going to use a pressure washer, even if you don’t have one you could rent one. You could use it on a very light setting and probably blast off a lot of that dirt.
Now, if you find that the dirt is off but it still looks dingy – and because it’s steel siding, you might want to consider repainting it.
JOHN: OK.
TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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