How I’d Clean My Own Driveway With a $300 Machine and a Saturday Afternoon

If you handed me a basic pressure washer, a free weekend, and told me to make a driveway look decent without turning it into a science project, I’d start by dialing back the fantasy version of how this is supposed to go. A driveway is not a showroom floor and it is not a freshly poured slab that just rolled out of a catalog. It is a working surface that has been quietly absorbing whatever cars, trees, and weather have been feeding it for years, and the goal with a homeowner machine is to make it look like someone lives here and pays attention, not like you hired a commercial crew with a trailer full of gear.

The first thing I’d do is walk it slowly and actually look at it the way you look at a trail before you drop in. Oil spots where the same car parks every night, rust freckles where rain drips off a railing or a truck, green along the shady edge where moss is trying to reclaim territory, that faint dark ghost where the garbage bins live. When you wash, you are not inventing those marks, you are exposing them, so I’d clock them mentally and stop pretending they’re all going to vanish in one afternoon. That mindset change is half the battle with DIY cleaning, because you stop fighting the slab and start working with it.

With a smaller machine, the trap is treating it like a magic wand. Pull the trigger, watch a bright line appear, assume the rest will follow if you just go slow enough. What actually works better is thinking in big, boring sections. I’d start at the top of the drive and work downhill so I’m not tracking dirty water back over clean concrete, and I’d move like I’m mowing a lawn, overlapping passes with just enough rhythm that nothing gets special treatment. Wand at a comfortable distance, not creeping in until the spray is chewing the surface, and no hovering on that one stubborn dark spot until it turns chalk white, because that is how you end up with a driveway that looks like a zebra crossing from space.

If I had a little room in that $300 budget, I’d buy a cheap surface cleaner before I bought a louder or more powerful washer. Even the budget surface cleaners change the whole game, because they force consistency and remove your wrist from the equation. You push a spinning disc instead of painting with a laser pointer, and suddenly the slab changes color evenly instead of in handwriting. It feels like cheating the first time, but it is just a different tool solving a different problem.

Before I even pulled the cord, I’d soak the driveway with a hose and hit the oily spots with a basic degreaser. Nothing exotic, nothing that smells like a refinery, just something meant for concrete. The point is not to erase the existence of oil forever, it is to soften the worst of it so you are not trying to solve chemistry with brute force. Let it sit while you drag hoses around and trip over extension cords, then rinse and start your passes while everything is still damp and cooperative.

Once I was washing, I’d move steadily and accept that some stains are part of the slab now. Concrete is porous and it keeps receipts. Oil and rust live below the surface, and pressure washing mostly deals with what is accessible. The trick is not erasing history, it is evening out the surface so your eye stops snapping to the worst spots. When everything is broadly lighter and the green film is gone, the driveway stops feeling neglected even if a few ghosts hang around in the right light.

I’d keep an eye on where the water is pooling, because a $300 machine moves water slowly and puddles build up fast. Push the runoff toward the street or a drain with the wand or a broom, because letting dirty water sit and evaporate is how you end up with streaks that look like you never touched the place. It is boring work, but it is the difference between a driveway that looks rinsed and a driveway that looks like it was cleaned by someone who got tired halfway through.

After the last rinse, I’d leave it alone for an hour. Wet concrete lies. Things disappear when it is damp and reappear when it dries, and chasing every wet illusion is how you carve permanent lines into the slab. Come back when it is drying and see what actually bothers you, then decide if it is worth another pass or if you are just staring at it because you have been staring at it all day.

If I wanted to go further, I’d think about sealing, but only after a couple dry days and only if I cared enough to make it part of a longer routine. Sealer slows down how fast stains sink in and how fast moss creeps back, but it is not a magic shield and it is not something I’d tack onto a casual Saturday unless I was already committed to keeping up with it.

By the end of the afternoon, I would not expect a showroom driveway. I would expect something lighter, cleaner, less chaotic, something that looks like it belongs to a house that is being looked after. That is usually the threshold where people stop noticing the concrete and start noticing the yard, the trees, the light, the rest of the place. If you get there with a modest machine and a steady pace, that is a solid Saturday.

And if halfway through you decide you would rather hand it off to someone with a trailer rig and a surface cleaner the size of a lawnmower, that is just information. You learned what the slab does, what the machine does, and what your weekend is worth. That is usually the whole point of trying it once yourself.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

A DIY Method That Looks Good Enough

Most people aren’t chasing a driveway that looks like it was poured last week for a brochure. They want it to stop looking slick and green, to not feel like a damp forest floor when they take the trash out, and to not look like the place is slowly getting absorbed by runoff and shade. There’s a wide middle ground between pro-level perfect and letting everything grow, and that middle ground is where a homeowner routine actually fits. You can spend an afternoon on it, coil the hose before dark, and feel like the place moved a few years younger instead of a few years older.

When I first started cleaning concrete, I treated every faint line and stubborn oil spot like it was my fault. I’d slow down, hover, change tips, change angles, convince myself there was some trick I was missing. It wasn’t dramatic, it just kept doing the same thing every time I looked at it, and I kept thinking about it the next time I walked past. Eventually you notice nobody else is zooming in the way you are. People clock whether the slab looks cared for, not whether a ghost stain is still there. Once that clicked, the job stopped feeling like a test and started feeling like yard work that resets things for another season.

A basic homeowner setup goes further than people think if you let it be what it is. A decent electric machine, a wide fan tip, and a slow walk will take a slab from slick and blotchy to neutral and forgettable, which is where most people want it. I keep the wider tip on and back off a step, overlap on purpose, and move like I’m mowing a lawn instead of drawing with a marker. It looks fine while it’s wet and different once it dries, and most of the faint shadows fade into the background once the light changes.

Pre-treating is where DIY stops feeling like you’re fighting the surface. Even a mild homeowner cleaner or a carefully diluted mix will loosen the green and black stuff that actually makes a place look neglected. I’ll spray, let it sit, keep it from drying out, then rinse in boring, even passes. You can feel when it’s working because you’re not grinding away at one patch to prove something to the concrete. You’re just guiding water across something that’s already letting go.

Part of good enough is knowing where to stop. Expansion joints, tire marks, and old oil spots live in a different category than surface grime, and you can burn an entire afternoon trying to erase them with a homeowner machine. Some spots clean evenly and some spots fight you the whole way. I’ll clean the big areas, rinse until the runoff looks clear, and leave the edges unless I actually have a plan for them. Chasing every seam is how a simple afternoon turns into sore wrists and faint tracks that only you will ever notice.

The same rhythm carries over to patios, sidewalks, and low siding. Wide passes, gentle pressure, overlap on purpose, no hero moves. If something only looks good when you’re blasting it from six inches away, it probably wants a different tool or a different approach. Most places don’t need that kind of intervention every season. They need someone to knock the growth back before it turns into a permanent layer.

Eighty percent clean changes how a place feels in a way that’s hard to notice until it’s gone. When the green film lifts, when walkways stop looking slick, when the driveway stops reading as a dark block in front of the house, everything else feels lighter without you touching a plant or repainting a board. You notice the yard, the trees, the light, and the fact that you’re not thinking about moss when you walk to the mailbox. That’s usually plenty.

If you decide you care more later, you can chase deeper stains, step up equipment, or think about sealing. None of that has to be the starting point. A repeatable, slightly boring routine that gets you to good enough is often the difference between a place that looks lived in and a place that slowly drifts into that damp PNW look that only feels charming when it’s someone else’s.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

Chemicals Homeowners Should and Shouldn’t Use

When I first started cleaning exteriors, I treated chemicals like a personality test. Either you were the person who refused to touch anything stronger than water, or you were the person mixing buckets like you were running a pool supply store. I bounced between both, mostly depending on how stubborn a patch of green on siding was or how tired I was of a driveway that wouldn’t lighten. It didn’t take long to realize neither extreme felt good, and most of what actually works sits somewhere in the middle.

Most of what builds up on a house is organic. Algae, mildew, moss, pollen, road grime, soil, whatever drips out of trees in spring. Water moves a lot of it if you give it time, but water doesn’t kill anything and it doesn’t break down oils. It just knocks things loose and sends them somewhere else. You can wash siding, feel like you did something, and then watch the same side go green again before the season flips. You cleaned the surface and left the underlying growth to regroup.

The stuff that tends to behave for homeowners is usually boring on purpose. Oxygen cleaners, light degreasers made for patios, things that smell mild and don’t punish you if you get distracted for a few minutes. They take longer, but they’re forgiving. I’ve mixed things too hot and watched them do exactly what they’re designed to do, just faster than I wanted. Dilute, let it sit, rinse, then see what it looks like dry. Concrete tells on itself when it dries, and siding does too.

Where people end up in expensive stories is with acids and heavy solvents. Muriatic acid shows up in every concrete thread because it “works,” and it does, in the same way a grinder works on wood. It cleans, it roughs, and it changes the surface whether you meant to or not. I’ve seen slabs that looked fine wet and looked striped once the sun hit them at an angle. Strong solvents do similar things to asphalt, wood, and paint. They dissolve finishes that were doing a quiet job until you erased them. They feel powerful, and power is tempting when something looks dirty, but there’s no undo button.

Bleach sits in its own lane because it actually does what people think it does. It kills organic growth fast and cheap, which is why crews use it. It’s also easy to misuse in a backyard where dogs walk, gardens exist, and runoff goes wherever gravity feels like sending it. I’ve watched it streak siding, fade wood, and cook plants when someone got casual with it. It’s not some forbidden substance, but it’s not a casual ingredient either. You either control it or you accept that slower options exist.

One thing that took me a while to get comfortable with is that chemicals don’t fix bad technique. They just speed it up. A heavy hand with something mild usually ends in a second pass and no big damage. A heavy hand with something aggressive ends in lifted paint, etched concrete, and a call to someone who fixes what you just cleaned. I still test small areas first, mostly out of habit now. It looked fine while it was wet and different once it dried is a sentence that replays in my head.

There’s also the part that never shows up on the label. You’re the one living there. Dogs roll in that grass. People touch that railing. Soil holds onto what you pour into it longer than you think. Contractors think in dwell time and efficiency because they leave when the job is done. You stay. A surface that’s a little imperfect but intact is usually easier to live with than one that looks perfect for a week and starts failing quietly.

I’m not anti-chemical. I’m anti-guessing. The right product, mixed light and used with some patience, makes maintenance feel predictable. The wrong product, used with confidence and impatience, shortens the quiet life of everything you’re trying to take care of. Around here, where moisture never really leaves and growth always comes back, the goal isn’t to nuke everything once. It’s to clean it in a way the materials can keep tolerating, year after year, while everything around them keeps trying to grow back.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

Why Cheap Pressure Washers Stripe Concrete

The first time someone cleans their own driveway, there’s usually a moment where they step back, hose in hand, and realize it looks worse than before they started. Instead of one even gray slab, there are zebra stripes, wand arcs, darker ghost bands where they walked slower, lighter bands where they sped up, and sometimes those thin lines that don’t show up until it rains again. People assume they held the wand wrong or they don’t have the touch for it, but a lot of the time it’s the machine. Most homeowner units aren’t really built to wash big concrete evenly, they’re built to do a little bit of everything without being great at any one thing, and concrete is where that shows.

Most of those smaller machines will make decent pressure, but they don’t move a lot of water. It sounds like a small difference until you’re pushing a narrow fan across a slab that’s been soaking up moisture for years. Concrete is inconsistent. Some spots are denser, some are more porous, some have been shaded forever, some have been baked dry in the afternoon sun, and a driveway also has its own history of drip lines and traffic and whatever has sat on it. When you’re cleaning with a wand, every hesitation, every overlap, every change in distance gets recorded. You don’t notice it while everything is wet, then it starts drying in patches and suddenly your path is basically drawn on the surface.

You also get pump behavior in the mix. Cheaper units tend to surge a little. You hear it in the motor and you can feel it in the wand, just a small pulse as it builds and drops while your arms are doing their own imperfect rhythm. On siding, nobody cares. On concrete, it shows up like a barcode because the surface is flat and it tells on you. Concrete also darkens when it’s saturated and lightens as it dries, so while you’re working you’re not just cleaning, you’re watching moisture move around in real time. Half the stripes people hate are really “wet versus less wet,” but they look permanent when you’re standing there looking at them.

The tips that come in the box don’t help. A narrow tip will carve if you linger, and everyone lingers when they hit a stubborn spot. A wider fan spreads the pressure out, but if the machine doesn’t have the flow to keep up, you end up doing slow, overlapping passes that still leave a visible grid because you’re basically shading in the driveway one strip at a time. On larger slabs, I’m usually not out there freehanding it with a bare wand unless it’s a small area or I’m just rinsing. If the goal is an even clean, you want the spray pattern held at a fixed distance and blended as it moves, and that’s why surface cleaners exist. It’s not a magic trick, it just takes your “human wobble” out of the equation and keeps the nozzles doing the same thing the whole time.

Around here, the striping also has a way of exposing the environment. Driveways grow life in patterns. The shady side under trees stays green, the strip that gets sun stays lighter, the low spot by a downspout gets its own little dark patch all winter. When you clean with a small, intense jet, you’re not just removing dirt, you’re digging up that whole map. Smaller machines exaggerate it because they clean in thin bands instead of averaging everything out, so you see every transition instead of getting one even reset.

None of this means you shouldn’t touch your own driveway. A basic washer can still knock things back and make it safer to walk on, it just has limits you feel pretty fast once you’re a few passes in. If you’ve ever been halfway across a slab, staring at tiger stripes and wondering how it got worse, that’s usually what’s happening. The machine has enough pressure to expose every inconsistency in the concrete and in your movement, but it doesn’t have the flow or the setup to smooth it out, so you’re left deciding if you want to work around it, upgrade the setup, or hand it off to someone who shows up with the right attachment and makes it look boring on purpose.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

What Pressure Washing Actually Does, and What It Doesn’t

When I first started messing around with a pressure washer, I had it in my head that it worked like an eraser. Something looked rough, you clean it, it looks fine again, and that’s basically the end of it. After a couple seasons of watching the same places go through the same cycle around here, that idea didn’t hold up. It’s closer to maintenance on anything that lives outside. You nudge it back toward normal, you keep an eye on the spots that always drift first, and then you’re back out there later doing it again because the weather never really stops working.

On a basic level, pressure washing is good at taking off the stuff that sits on top and turns everything into a sponge. That green film on siding, the slime on concrete, mildew on decks, the gray layer on fences, it’s not just cosmetic. It holds water, it holds dirt, and it keeps a surface damp way longer than it should be. You take that layer off and the material actually gets a chance to dry between storms instead of staying wet for weeks at a time. You can feel it when you walk a deck that’s been cleaned and had a few dry days versus one that’s been shaded and slick for months. The difference isn’t dramatic in the moment, but over years it adds up in how paint fails, how wood starts to get soft, how concrete starts holding onto grime like it’s part of the mix.

The part I didn’t expect early on is how much cleaning shows you. A dirty house hides a lot. Once the green and gray are gone, you start seeing what was already there. A board that’s been loose doesn’t look “fine” anymore, it just looks loose. Hairline cracks show up in concrete that you couldn’t see when it was stained. Paint that was hanging on by habit lets you know it’s done. You can see where water likes to sit because those spots always clean differently, and you can tell where something’s been sitting when you see it every day. I’ve had plenty of jobs where the washing part was the easy part and the real value was figuring out what the house was doing once it wasn’t covered up.

What pressure washing doesn’t do is fix the reason things got dirty. If a downspout dumps right onto a corner and keeps that area wet, you can clean it and it’ll streak again. If a wall never sees sun and it stays damp, the algae will come back because it likes that wall. If gutters overflow and water keeps running down the fascia, those lines will show up again and again. Washing buys time. It doesn’t change the environment, and it doesn’t change gravity. You can clean symptoms all day and never touch the pattern that’s creating them, and you’ll feel that after a while because you end up back at the same place doing the same work.

It also doesn’t fix anything that’s actually broken. It won’t tighten fasteners, it won’t seal joints, it won’t repaint exposed wood, it won’t make warped boards behave. If anything, it makes those issues harder to ignore. You wash a deck and suddenly you can see which boards are soft. You rinse siding and you realize where paint has failed. That part can be annoying if you were hoping for a quick “looks good” moment, but it’s still useful. I’d rather notice something early while it’s still a small repair than find it later when it’s turned into a bigger job.

The mental shift for me was treating pressure washing more like regular upkeep than some big transformation tool. The machine feels powerful, so it’s easy to get sucked into the idea that harder is better, but that’s where people start roughing up surfaces and creating more places for water to live. I keep the wider tip on and back off a step more than feels necessary, and I pay attention to what the surface does once it dries. Concrete tells on itself when it dries. Wood will get fuzzy if you’re pushing it. Paint looks solid until you put water under it. If I’m trying something new or I don’t trust the surface, I’ll start somewhere nobody looks and I’ll watch it when it settles back into normal light, because wet hides a lot.

There’s also just a practical difference in how a place feels when it isn’t carrying years of buildup. Light hits siding differently. Deck boards don’t feel slick underfoot. A patio stops feeling like something you’re borrowing from the woods. It’s not a makeover. It’s just the exterior looking like an exterior again, and staying easier to keep up with because you’re not letting everything get established first.

Out here you’re not trying to beat the rain or erase the trees. You’re just keeping the line between built space and the green stuff where you want it, and doing it without tearing up the materials in the process. Pressure washing is one of the tools for that. It’s not magic, and it’s not the whole story, but when it’s done with a little restraint it buys you time and it shows you what’s going on, which is usually what I’m after anyway.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

The Small Habits That Keep a House From Turning Green

There’s a point every spring where you step outside with coffee and realize the place changed while you weren’t looking. The north side looks darker, the deck has that slick feel under your shoes, the driveway picked up a tint that wasn’t there when you parked in the fall. It never shows up all at once. It just keeps doing the same thing every time you look away, and eventually you notice it.

Around here, surfaces don’t stay neutral for long. Dirt is one thing, but most of what shows up is alive. Moss, algae, mildew, whatever name you want to give it, all of it likes shade and water and time. You can feel it under your boots when something hasn’t dried in a while. It looked fine while it was wet and different once it dried, and that difference is usually where things start.

I assumed early on that the fix was better gear and stronger mixes. More pressure, hotter mix, bigger machine. That worked for the moment, but the bigger shift was noticing small patterns and nudging them instead of trying to reset everything in one afternoon. Shade was the first thing that stood out. A branch that never touched siding still changed how long it stayed damp. The north side behaved differently than the side that saw sun by noon. Trimming a branch didn’t change how the place looked from the street, but it changed how fast surfaces dried, and that changed how fast green came back.

Debris was the next thing that kept showing up. Needles in roof valleys, leaves along deck edges, grit in corners that nobody looks at. You can wash a roof clean and still end up with moss if the low spots stay full of organic sludge. A blower in the fall and a rinse in spring ended up doing more than a dramatic scrub every few years. You can tell where something’s been sitting when you see it every day.

Water paths mattered more than I expected. Downspouts dumping right at the base of siding, valleys that held water after storms, spots where the ground sloped back toward trim boards. Those areas always looked older. Extending a downspout or changing where water hits soil doesn’t feel like a project, but you can see where water likes to sit, and those spots always turn first.

My washing changed because of that. Waiting until everything looked tired meant I was always leaning harder on tired surfaces. Paint that had already softened, wood that had already taken on moisture, concrete that had been hosting algae for years. Light passes on shady sides, backing off the wand, letting mixes sit instead of forcing it, that kept things from getting established in the first place. You can hear when the surface changes under the wand, and that sound sticks with you.

Airflow ended up being another quiet variable. Firewood stacked tight, fences built with no gap, storage shoved into corners. Those spots stayed damp no matter how much sun the rest of the place got. Pulling things away a few inches changed how those corners aged. Houses don’t breathe, but they act like they do.

None of this felt like a system while it was happening. It just felt like noticing small things and adjusting them before they stacked up. If you ignore it, you end up with one long weekend trying to undo a couple seasons in a day, using stronger methods on surfaces that already gave up a little.

You can’t stop green from showing up here. The woods are going to do what they do. The difference is whether the house keeps blending in with them or stays boring and dry looking from the driveway. And if thinking about any of that sounds annoying, that’s usually when I rinse everything back to neutral, notice the corners that will turn first, and move on while it still looks quiet.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

When Roof Moss Is DIY and When to Call Someone Who Isn’t Afraid of Heights

The first time I climbed onto a roof to deal with moss, I figured it would be quick, something you squeeze in before dinner and forget about by the next day. From the driveway it looked mellow, a shallow pitch, a faint green shadow on the north side, nothing that felt like a whole project. From up there it was different. The shingles flexed a little, the wind sounded louder, and the moss that looked soft from below felt slick and spongy under boots. I stood there with a brush in my hand and listened to the ladder creak and the roof move, doing that quiet math about how I’d get down if something shifted in the wrong direction.

Some roofs are manageable if you stay slow and deliberate. Single story, mild slope, moss you can reach without leaning too far, nothing hidden under your feet. You keep your weight low, test each step, brush small sections, rinse light, and watch how the shingles react. It is careful, boring work, and it stays boring if you respect how fast a roof can change once you are standing on it instead of looking at it.

Other roofs change the conversation as soon as you step onto them. Two stories up, steeper pitch, moss thick enough that the shingle lines disappear, the surface feeling more like damp grass than roofing. You lean forward to reach something and feel your boots slide just a little, and gravity stops being an idea and starts being a thing you can feel in your stomach. That is usually when people stop treating it like a weekend task and start noticing ladders and drop-offs in a more serious way.

Roofs also age in ways you do not see from the ground. Shingles curl, plywood softens where water sat, nails back out, flashing shifts. Moss hides all of that and makes everything look uniform. You step on a spot that looks solid and feel it flex more than you expected. I pay attention to how it sounds underfoot, where needles collect, where low spots hold moisture. You can tell where water likes to sit when you see it every season. You learn where not to kneel.

There is usually a moment when you know whether you should still be up there. It is not dramatic. It is just a quiet recalculation when you look down and notice how far the ground actually is, or when your calves start doing more work than your hands. Steep pitch, real height, thick moss that hides the surface, that is where it stops feeling casual. Not because it cannot be done, but because roofs make small mistakes expensive.

Sometimes I stay up there and move slow. Sometimes I stay on the ladder and work the edges. Sometimes I stand on the ground and watch someone else deal with the angles and the ladders. Around here roofs grow things whether you touch them or not, and the line between cleaning and falling is thinner than it looks from the driveway.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.

Roof Moss, Green Dreams, and Why It Shows Up So Fast In Washington

The first time I really noticed moss on a roof, I was standing in the driveway after a week where the rain never really quit, coffee getting cold in my hand, looking up and realizing the roof had started to blend into the tree line. It did not show up all at once. One year the shingles looked normal, the next year the north-facing side had a faint haze, and then suddenly the roofline had that muted green that shows up everywhere around here if you stop paying attention. The rain is light but constant, the air holds onto moisture, and the trees keep everything shaded. Moss does not need drama. It just needs time.

For a while I thought moss was mostly cosmetic. There are places around here where roofs look like they belong in a postcard, and I get why people like that look. Then I started paying attention to shingles that had been holding onto that green for years. Moss is basically a wet sponge sitting on your roof. It traps water against the shingle, lifts edges, catches needles and grit, and keeps everything damp in spots that are supposed to dry between storms. None of it announces itself. It just sits there and works on the roof a little at a time.

The first instinct is always to scrape it. I have done that, up on a roof with a scraper, pulling moss off in thick mats that come up like sod. It feels productive in the moment. It also roughs up the shingle surface at the same time, and that rough surface is exactly what the next round of moss wants. Around here, that usually means it comes back faster and sticks harder.

What slows it down is quieter. Sunlight makes a difference. Trim a branch and a roof section can dry hours sooner after a storm, and those hours add up over a winter. Airflow matters too. A roof that stays shaded and still is a roof that stays wet.

Soft washing fits roofs better than blasting them. You put a mix on that breaks down what the moss is anchored to and rinse it without chewing up the shingle. It does not have a dramatic moment while you are standing there, but it resets the surface in a way scraping never really does. You are not just pulling off the carpet. You are loosening what is holding it down.

Those thin metal strips near the ridge are another quiet move. Zinc or copper lines are not decoration. Rain picks up a trace of metal and carries it down the roof, and moss does not like that. Over time you can see cleaner streaks below the strip without anyone scrubbing anything.

Moss feels like part of the local background once you live here long enough. If you leave wood outside, it turns green. If you leave a roof alone, it does the same thing. You can scrape it, treat it, trim around it, or let it ride for a while. Most of the work is small and a little boring. Clear the gutters so water stops backing up. Trim a branch that keeps a whole roof face in shade. Rinse things gently instead of chewing them up. The green never fully goes away here. It just hangs out until you notice it again.

This article is part of the Exterior Maintenance Guide for PNW Homes.