Cleaning the outside of a house.

[bunn]

Where I live, it's very damp.  It's a river valley and most mornings, the mist comes up off the river before it burns off.   Typically, our weather is damp and kind of warmish in the summer, and damp and kind of coldish in the winter.  It's a perfect environment for things to... grow.  

Our house has rendered painted walls - and all over the walls GREEN THINGS have started growing.  Then slugs and snails have wandered over the GREEN THINGS and made weird little tracks all over the walls.

Last time the house went green, we had it painted. If I remember rightly, the painter cleaned it all beforehand with soapy water with a sponge and a bucket. but then he was a man who thought nothing of whizzing up and down perilously balancing on ladders.

The paint still seems in good condition, so I'm kind of thinking rather than painting again, it would  be nice to just give it a good wash.  But how do you wash a two story house?  I can wash the bottom of it, but how do you get at the top half?

Any cunning ideas or ingenious tips? 

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Would a pressure washer with a long lance work?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

We had thought of that, but wondered if it might be a bit fierce and take the paint off as well?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hm, I suppose it might. My experience of these things is very limited.

Re: Thanks

[bunn.livejournal.com]

LOL, amusing cheeky spam. Almost amusing enough that I left it there... but not quite. Zap.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I saw a TV programme last year about a couple on the Isle of Wight who wanted to convert their little woodland cottage into some architectural fastness. The wife was an artist, and had some idea of painting the outside of the house with some strange mixture of manure and organic yogurt, or some such, in order to make the house turn green.

It didn't.

Which doesn't help you one little bit, but illustrates the poignancy of a world in which there are people with green houses who want them not-green, and people with not-green houses who desperately want them green.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's a sad world!

I did that manure and yoghurt thing to try to make a plastic gargoyle green once. It's the only thing in my garden that STILL doesn't have green stuff all over it!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Our decking is covered with Green. I hadn't realised quite how much Green there was until I started to wash it off. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the clean bits are appreciably lower than the dirty bits, leading to a trip hazard, given how much Green they have had washed off them.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

You could test a pressure washer on a small inconspicuous area of the garment first, to check for colour-fastness.

Or you could use a brush or mop on a long stick, possibly with a second long stick for extra longth.

Do a rain dance? Throw sand at the walls during a heavy rain storm?

Hold PP armed with sponge out of the windows, with a hose running up his trouser leg and up his arm to allow for fresh injections of soapy water?