Home / Pressure Washing / Charleston
Who we recommend, what it should cost, and what to ask before you book.
Puts the wash in the right place in your project, and settles the access before the truck is booked.
Visit Lowcountry Pressure WashingDisclosure: the crews recommended on this page are part of Trusted Local Network — we have a commercial interest in them, and you should weigh that. Nobody pays for placement, and the pricing and hiring advice here is the same advice we would give about any crew.
Charleston is the metro where a wash goes wrong on scheduling and access far more often than on technique. The first thing to settle is where the wash sits in the order of the work. If the roof is being repaired, the gutters cleared or the live oaks trimmed, all of that goes first — wash before them and the debris comes straight back down onto clean walls. Painting runs the other way: the wash comes before it, and the surface has to be genuinely dry before a brush touches it, so have the painter and the washing crew agree that gap rather than assuming a day is enough. Sealing a driveway or pavers works the same way. Getting the order backwards is the ordinary way people here pay for the same wash twice. The second thing is to say what the wash is for, because a maintenance wash, a prep wash before paint and a wash before listing photographs are three different scopes at three different prices. A prep wash has to take off chalking and anything loose, not merely the green; a wash for photographs is about the elevations a camera will actually see, and is worth booking against the photographer's date. Third, and this is the one that quietly decides your appointment: describe the access when you book. A peninsula single house sits sideways on a narrow lot behind a gate, and downtown and the older streets north of it often mean a shared alley, no driveway, a long hose run from the one working spigot, and nowhere legal to leave a truck. Out in Summerville, Goose Creek and Mount Pleasant that is rarely the constraint. A crew that finds all this out on the day either rushes the job or re-quotes it.
House soft-washing usually runs about $150-$450 depending on size, driveways and concrete $100-$250, and a full roof soft-wash $300-$700. Reputable crews quote a flat price by the job — roughly $0.10-$0.60 per square foot depending on the surface, with flat concrete at the low end and soft-washed siding, decks, and roofs at the high end — not by the hour. A prep wash before painting and a downtown job with no driveway and a long hose run are both quoted differently from a standard house wash, so say which one you are actually asking for when you request the number.
Before, and with a dry interval in between. Paint needs a clean, sound, dry surface, so the wash is prep work rather than a finishing touch — but a soft-washed wall holds moisture for a while, and how long depends on the material, the shade and the humidity that week. Ask the painter what they want to see and let the washing crew answer to that rather than to a generic figure. Anything that drops debris — roof repairs, gutter clearing, tree trimming — should be finished before the wash, not after it, or you will be paying to clean the same walls twice.
Everything that would surprise them on arrival. Whether there is a driveway or only street parking, whether the way in is a shared alley or a locked gate, how far the nearest working outdoor spigot is from the far side of the house, and whether a courtyard or a piazza has to be reached through the house. On the peninsula and the older streets around it these are the normal conditions rather than the exceptions, and they change how long the job takes. A company told up front can send the right crew and hold its quote; one that discovers it on the day will either hurry the work or price it again while standing in your yard.
Yes — our Charleston pick covers the city and the peninsula along with those East Cooper, Dorchester and Berkeley County towns. Mention which one you are in when you ask for a quote, because the practical constraints differ sharply across this metro: a Summerville or Goose Creek address usually has a driveway and room to work, while a downtown one may not.