Figuring Out House Washing Prices - My Journey

Alright, so folks often ask me how I actually come up with a price when someone wants their house pressure washed. It wasn't like I woke up one day knowing this stuff. It took a bit of doing, a few head-scratchers, and some trial and error, let me tell ya. When I first kicked off, I was just winging it, and believe me, that’s no way to run a business, not if you want to eat.

Starting From Scratch Was Tough

When I first got into this, pricing was a real puzzle. Did I just guess? Look at the house and pull a number out of a hat? I actually tried that a couple of times. Sometimes I'd undersell myself something fierce, basically working for peanuts. Other times, I'd probably quote way too high and the phone wouldn't ring back. It was pretty clear, pretty fast, that I needed a proper system, something I could rely on.

Getting Down to Measuring – The Nitty Gritty

I realized I had to get methodical. The biggest thing, I figured, was the actual size of the job. How much wall space am I really gonna be cleaning? So, I started by measuring.

In the early days, I was out there with a long, clunky tape measure, wrestling with it, especially if there was a bit of wind. You can just imagine the scene. After a while, I got a bit smarter and invested in one of those laser distance measurers. Man, what a game changer! So much quicker, and you feel a bit like a pro. I just point and shoot to get the length of each wall that needs the business. Then, I figure out the average height of those walls. You know, some houses are straightforward single-story deals, others are two stories, and then you get those with all sorts of tall gables and funny angles.

Once I had those numbers for each section of wall – the length and the height – it was just some simple multiplication. Length times height for one wall section. Did that for all the sides I was gonna wash, then added all those numbers up. And bingo, I had the total square footage of the walls I’d be scrubbing. It felt real good to have a solid number to work with, not just some wild guess plucked from thin air.

Putting a Price on Each Square Foot

Okay, so I had the square footage. Now what? How much dough per square foot? I started asking around, talking to other guys in the biz, and just generally feeling out what seemed fair and what the market would bear. I learned pretty quick that a lot of pressure washing businesses, and even window cleaners, charge by the square foot. It just made sense, keeps things consistent.

In my experience, and what I've seen work, for houses, the rate usually lands somewhere between, say, $0.30 to $0.80 per square foot. Yeah, it's a bit of a range, I know. Where I actually set my price within that range depends on a few key things I look at on every job:

• How filthy is the place? A house that just needs a light seasonal freshen-up is a whole different beast than one that's got years of green gunk and black streaks caked on. More dirt usually means more time, maybe stronger cleaners, so I’d lean towards the higher end of that per-square-foot scale.
• How tricky is the house itself? We talking lots of high, hard-to-reach peaks? A forest of dormer windows? Bushes planted right up against the siding? All that stuff adds to the time and effort, so that gets factored in.
• What kind of siding are we dealing with? Some surfaces, like vinyl, are generally quicker and easier to clean than, say, old painted wood that might need a gentler touch.

So, I take my total calculated square footage, look at all those factors, and then multiply it by a rate per square foot that feels right for that specific job. I usually start my thinking somewhere in the middle of that price range I mentioned and then nudge it up or down based on how dirty or difficult the job looks.

A Quick Word on the Big Stuff

Now, it's worth saying, if we're talking about huge commercial buildings or big industrial jobs, that’s a whole different kettle of fish, as they say. The way you price those can be way more involved, often needing detailed bids, looking at equipment needs, and different safety stuff. But for your average Joe's house, this square footage method has served me really well over the years.

So, That's My System in a Nutshell!

And that’s pretty much my process, how I go from looking at a house to giving a homeowner a price. Measure it all up, crunch those numbers to get the square footage, pick a fair rate per square foot based on what the job actually entails, and there you have it. It definitely took me a while to nail down a system that worked, but having this approach makes quoting jobs a whole lot less about guesswork and a whole lot more about a reliable process. It keeps things fair for me, and it keeps things transparent for the homeowner too. Hope that sheds some light for anyone out there trying to figure this stuff out for themselves!