Soft washing is exterior cleaning done with chemistry instead of force: a cleaning solution applied at low pressure — not much stronger than a garden hose — left to work, then gently rinsed. It exists because most of the surfaces on a house cannot survive a pressure washer.
The problem soft washing solves
Render, painted brick, weatherboard, fibre cement and cladding are all damaged by high pressure. A wand at driveway settings strips paint, blows out render patches, gouges timber, and — worst of all — drives water behind cladding joints and window seals into the wall cavity, where it causes problems you won’t see for months.
But those same surfaces are exactly where mould, algae and grime build up. Soft washing squares that circle.
How it works
- Application. A purpose-mixed solution — typically a mould and algae killer with a surfactant — is applied across the surface at low pressure.
- Dwell. The solution sits and works, killing biological growth at the root and loosening the film of grime. This step does the actual cleaning.
- Rinse. Everything is rinsed off gently, top-down, taking the dead growth and dirt with it.
The result is usually better than pressure washing would achieve even where pressure were safe, because the growth is killed rather than trimmed — so the wall stays clean for years rather than months.
What about the garden?
A legitimate question, since the solutions used are not something you want sitting on planting. Professional practice is to pre-wet garden beds before starting, keep them wet during the work, and rinse everything down thoroughly after. Done properly, plants are unaffected.
Soft wash vs pressure wash: which surface gets which?
Soft wash only: render, paint, brick faces, weatherboard, cladding, roofs, eaves, colorbond fencing.
Pressure appropriate: concrete, exposed aggregate, dense stone like bluestone, most paving.
Chemistry-first with gentle rinse: sandstone, limestone, travertine and other soft stone.
Most homes need all three approaches on the same visit — which is why “we’ll just pressure wash the whole thing” is the sentence that should make you get a second quote.
