An exterior cleaning glossary for roofs, pavers and glass

Each term here gets one page and one definition, written the way a dictionary opens: the term or its category first, then what it means, in a few sentences that still make sense when they are read without the page around them.

The terms cover the parts of a roof, the materials and patterns of a paver surface, the features of a window, the Naples weather, and the Florida statutes, water rules and association documents that touch the work. Around each definition, the page says where a Naples homeowner meets the word, whose word it is, and how that publisher uses it, and it links to the answer or the service page that makes the longer argument.

A term page defines; it does not argue. When a word raises a question that needs more than a definition, the exterior cleaning answers take it one question at a time, and an answer that uses a word with a page here links to that page rather than defining it again. The index below runs A to Z.

Many of these words belong to a document before they belong to the trade, and a term page says which document. Where it matters, the definition follows that publisher's wording rather than a looser everyday sense.

Florida's association statutes show why. Chapter 720, for homeowners associations, defines a common area as “all real property within a community which is owned or leased by an association” or dedicated for use or maintenance by the association or its members. Chapter 718, for condominiums, uses a different term, common elements, for “the portions of the condominium property not included in the units.” The two words sit in two chapters, and under Florida Statutes 720.302(4), Chapter 720 does not apply to an association regulated under Chapter 718, except where a provision of Chapter 718 is expressly incorporated into Chapter 720, so the word that fits depends on which kind of community it is.

A water rule does the same thing with a phrase that sounds ordinary. In the South Florida Water Management District's Chapter 40E-21, low-volume pressure cleaning means pressure cleaning by means of equipment “specifically designed to reduce the inflow volume as accepted by industry standards.” The term page keeps that meaning, because in a declared Phase I or Phase II the district restricts outside pressure cleaning to low volume pressure cleaning, and the restriction is written around the defined term.

Some terms come with figures, and a figure is printed with the surface and the publisher it belongs to, in the same sentence, never as a general rule.

Dwell time is the clearest case. ARMA's shingle bulletin says its solution “should be left on the roof for at least 15 minutes but no more than 20 minutes,” while the Metal Roofing Alliance lets its detergent solution on metal “stand for 5 to 10 minutes” before the rinse. Those are two windows for two materials from two publishers, and neither one is a tile instruction.

Where no publisher gives a figure, the term page says that instead of supplying one. Pressure is the familiar example, and how soft washing works explains why no soft wash pressure figure is printed there or here.

The words for the parts of a roof, the features of a window and the ways a sealer fails are here so a homeowner can follow a maker's bulletin, an estimate or an association letter. A definition reports how a word is used. It is not an inspection, a repair instruction, a reading of an insurance policy or a ruling on a community's rules.

The same holds for the person using the words. A cleaner who knows what a valley or a drip edge is still does not inspect, repair or coat a roof, and what an exterior cleaner is not draws that line for all three surfaces. Where a question about a word turns into a question about a roof, a pane or a community's rules, the answer that owns it names the statute or the standard, and the office or trade that decides.