What is exterior cleaning?

Start with the dictionary. Cambridge defines exterior as “on or from the outside”, and that is the whole of the definition the phrase has.

No trade association or standards body read for this page defines the two words together. There is an association for asphalt roofing, an alliance for tile roofing, an institute for concrete pavers and an association for glass, and each one publishes instructions for its own material. None of the documents read is written for exterior cleaning as a whole, so in plain English the phrase means cleaning the outside surfaces of a property and nothing more technical than that.

What those outside surfaces collect is described by the same documents. ARMA writes that algae growth occurs to varying degrees in all regions of the U.S. and southern Canada, especially those subjected to warm, humid conditions. The Tile Roofing Industry Alliance goes wider: “Many climates are conducive to mildew, algae and moss growth on everything from glass, stucco, siding and driveways to roofing products including concrete and clay roofing tiles.” That sentence is TRI's list of where growth appears. It is not a list of services, and it is not a definition of a trade.

Because nobody writes a rulebook for the phrase, the rules arrive one surface at a time, and they do not travel from one surface to the next.

On a roof, ARMA's shingle procedure says to “allow the solution to dwell on the roof surface for 15 to 20 minutes, and then rinse thoroughly with low pressure water.” Low pressure plus a solution is the core of soft washing, and why a roof gets that method instead of pressure washing is set out under how soft washing works.

On concrete pavers, ICPI's instructions are about the site as much as the stone: sprinklers off, and “Anticipate where the cleaning fluids will drain, i.e, across the pavement and not onto grass or vegetation.” The sealer that can follow a paver cleaning has its own sequence, set out under how paver sealing works.

On glass, NGA writes that “Cleaning frequencies should be tailored to the individual characteristics inherent to the site conditions, as well as the severity of local environmental factors and atmospheric pollutants that vary from region to region.” It also lists bleach and other sodium hypochlorite solutions among the materials that may cause harm to laminated glass, and bleach is the working liquid of ARMA's roof procedure. PGT writes that its hurricane windows and doors are made with laminated glass, so on a house with impact windows, keeping a roof solution off the glass is a technical requirement of cleaning the two surfaces. What has to be known about a pane first is under how exterior window cleaning works.

A phrase with no rulebook still has an edge, and on a roof Florida statute draws it.

Florida Statutes 489.105(3)(e) defines a roofing contractor's work as covering all kinds of roofing, waterproofing and coating, “except when coating is not represented to protect, repair, waterproof, stop leaks, or extend the life of the roof.” Questions about a roof's condition, repair or coating belong with a licensed roofing contractor, and the edge of the job on all three surfaces is set out under where an exterior cleaner's job stops.

On this site the phrase has a fixed scope.

Here exterior cleaning means the three services 239 Exteriors names, roof cleaning, paver cleaning and exterior window cleaning, each described in the company's own words on the three surfaces 239 Exteriors cleans.

Roofs, pavers and exterior glass, then, and a separate rulebook behind each. Whether those three cleanings can share a single visit is its own question, answered under all three exterior cleanings in one visit. Whether a Naples address asks more of those surfaces than a house farther north does is taken up under Naples exteriors compared with homes up north.