Lakefront pressure washing on Lake Lanier, GA

A house on the water fights organic growth that homes farther inland never deal with. The lake keeps the air around it damp, so mold, mildew, and algae take hold on siding in weeks instead of months, and they hit hardest on the shaded, north-facing walls that never get enough sun to dry out. We soft wash Lake Lanier homes rather than blasting them, which matters on the lake. Low pressure paired with biodegradable detergents lifts the growth and kills it at the root without forcing water behind vinyl, brick, stucco, or hardiplank, and without driving contaminated runoff toward the shoreline. Lakefront homes across the north Atlanta area also tend to be larger, with walkout basements, tall lake-facing gables, and second-story decks that a wand cannot safely reach from the ground, so we bring the reach and the technique to clean the whole elevation evenly. House washing is priced by square footage, from $249 for a smaller home up to $599 for a large one, with a $150 add for three-story elevations. We pre-wet the landscaping first and rinse it thoroughly when we finish, so the hydrangeas, hardwoods, and lake-buffer plantings come through fine. See the soft wash house washing page for the full method.

Two things make a Lake Lanier home dirtier than a comparable house a few miles inland: water and trees. The 38,000-acre lake surface keeps humidity high right up against the shoreline, and lakefront lots are usually heavy with mature hardwoods and pines for shade and privacy. Put those together and you get exteriors that stay damp, drop constant leaf and needle litter, and grow algae fast. The green or black staining you see on lake-facing and north-facing walls, on shaded walkways, and on the lower siding is gloeocapsa magma and its relatives, and they thrive in exactly this kind of shaded, humid, tree-covered setting. Spring adds a second layer. Georgia pine and oak pollen blankets the whole north Atlanta area in late March and April, and around the lake it settles into a thick yellow film on decks, docks, railings, and pool surrounds that bonds when it gets wet and then feeds more growth. Timing service around the pollen is worth doing, and it is one of the reasons an annual wash keeps a lakefront home from sliding into a heavy, hard-to-reverse buildup. We cover the seasonal pattern in more detail in our Atlanta pressure washing cost guide.

A lake home is more than its walls, and the humidity that grows algae on siding hits the roof, the gutters, and the pool deck just as hard. Roofs on shaded, tree-covered lakefront lots streak black with gloeocapsa magma, the same algae that stains siding, and it feeds on the moisture coming off the water. We soft wash asphalt shingle roofs with low pressure and an algaecide blend, never high pressure, so the granules stay on the shingles and the growth dies at the root instead of getting blasted loose. Gutters on lake homes pick up tiger-stripe oxidation, the dark vertical streaks that run down the face of white aluminum gutters, and gutter whitening lifts that back to the original color as an add-on when we are already washing the house, from $149. Then there is the pool. Most Lanier homes with a pool run a large deck of concrete, pavers, or travertine that grows slick algae in the shade and picks up rust from metal furniture and iron in the water, which is a real slip hazard right at the waterline of the pool. We clean pool decks with slip safety in mind, protecting the pumps, filters, and surrounding plantings. Outdoor kitchens, screened porches, pergolas, and the covered lakeside living space that make these homes worth owning all get cleaned in the same visit, so the whole waterfront side of the property matches. See the gutter whitening page and the pool deck cleaning page for the full detail on each surface.