Is exterior cleaning worth it before selling a house?

Read across the rows and the answer to whether exterior cleaning is worth it before a sale stops being one question. Each surface has its own result and its own clock, and a seller can weigh them separately. The three are the same surfaces set out in the three surfaces an exterior cleaner works on, where roof cleaning is a soft wash, paver work is a deep clean with sealing as a separate second step, and window cleaning is exterior glass only.

None of the three rows is a measurement of what a buyer offers; they describe curb appeal, the look from the street. Whether exterior cleaning adds value in any figure is a separate question with a separate answer, in whether exterior cleaning adds value to a home.

The roof row is the most visible from the street and the most openly temporary in its own source.

The ARMA and TRI Alliance lines in that row are read against a sale, from the stain a buyer sees to what a licensee must disclose, in whether roof cleaning can help sell a house. Soft washing is the method, and a cleaning says nothing about the condition of the roof beneath the streaks, which is where what an exterior cleaner is not draws the line.

A roof sits above glass, and that is a constraint of the job. Bleach and other sodium hypochlorite solutions are on NGA's list of corrosive materials for laminated glass, whose plastic interlayer NGA says is generally exposed around the edge of the pane. PGT builds its own hurricane windows and doors with laminated glass, and Cardinal's Sea-Storm is impact-rated laminated glass, so on impact windows below a roof the glass itself sets the requirement that roof solution stays off it. The order the three surfaces are cleaned in follows from constraints like that one, set out in whether the roof is cleaned before or after the pavers.

The paver row splits in two, because a cleaning and a sealing do different things to how a driveway looks.

What ICPI says each of the two does to a paver's color, sheen and stain resistance is set out under what a paver sealer does to color and sheen. The reapplication line in the table is the reason a sealed finish is not a permanent change.

Sealing also puts a clock on the calendar: a dry surface before the coat, and no traffic until it dries. Whether a sealer is needed for a sale at all, and how that clock meets a showing schedule, is answered in whether pavers need to be sealed before selling a house.

The window row has the shortest horizon, because a clean pane is clean only until something new dries on it.

NGA ties routine cleaning to the glass rather than to a date: glass is cleaned as dirt and residue appear, and dirt and residue should not stay on it for an extended period. Rain and sprinkler water that dries on a pane can leave spotting behind. On the company's window page, clean windows help a home or business present “a more polished appearance”, which is again a claim about looks.

Put the three rows against a listing calendar and a pattern appears as reasoning rather than a rule. The roof change is the one ARMA calls temporary over time, the paver sealing needs a dry day before it and, in ICPI's typical figure, a day off the surface after it, and the glass change lasts only until the next deposit. Why clean glass reads differently in a camera is its own mechanism, in whether windows should be cleaned before listing photos. Whether to list with the exterior cleaned, and when, is the seller's call with the listing licensee; nothing here measures what it does to a sale. Once a buyer has signed, the questions change, as set out in whether a house under contract can be cleaned.