What a house wash costs in Sydney (2026, real numbers)
A house soft wash in Sydney starts at $300. Most single-storey homes land between $420 and $960, priced by wall area, and a second storey adds about 40%. The bigger variable is method: soft washing cleans render, paint and cladding without damage, where high pressure can cost you more than the wash saved. Schmick's instant quote turns those ranges into a firm price.
The numbers, straight up
House soft washing in Sydney starts at $300 — that is the genuine floor, for a small single-storey place with easy access. Most single-storey washes land between $420 and $960, and the number that decides where you sit in that range is wall area. Nothing mysterious: more wall, more time, more cleaning solution. A second storey adds roughly 40%, because everything above the gutter line is slower and needs more care.
Those figures come from Schmick's live price book, so they are prices people actually pay — not a teaser designed to get a salesperson onto your driveway. The wash covers exterior walls, eaves and soffits: the painted, rendered and clad surfaces that collect Sydney's mould, salt film and airborne grime. Windows, gutters and driveways are separate services with their own numbers, and bundling them onto the same visit saves 5 to 15%.
Wall area, not postcode
Wall area is the honest way to price a wash. It tracks the actual work: square metres of surface, litres of solution, hours on site. A compact three-bedder in Willoughby and the same floor plan in Bellevue Hill get the same number, because the walls are the same size. Plenty of operators price by suburb instead — the quote inflates the moment they see the street. We think that is a poor habit, so we do not do it.
The second-storey loading is about the work too. Cleaning above the gutter line means extension poles, ladder moves and slower, more deliberate rinsing — hence the roughly 40% uplift on two-storey homes. Heavy growth can shift a quote as well; a south-facing wall that has gone green needs longer dwell times than one that is merely dusty. None of this needs an inspection to price. Wall area, storeys and condition answer most of it up front.
The method matters more than the price
A soft wash uses low pressure and purpose-made cleaning solutions. The chemistry does the work: it kills mould, algae and lichen at the root, and then the surface is rinsed at little more than garden-hose pressure. That is the correct treatment for painted walls, render and cladding — surfaces that were never built to take a pressure washer at close range, however satisfying the before-and-after looks.
High pressure on the wrong surface turns a cheap wash into an expensive repair. It can strip paint, etch render and force water behind cladding, where it sits and does quiet damage. So compare method before you compare price. The cheapest number in your inbox is often a pressure wand pointed at your walls, and the damage does not show until well after the van has left. If you want the full argument, we have written it up separately.
What a wash will not fix
A soft wash removes what is sitting on the surface: mould, algae, lichen, salt film, cobwebs, dust and general atmospheric grime. On most homes that is transformative — walls come back several shades lighter and render looks freshly done. But cleaning is not restoration, and it is worth being clear about the difference before money changes hands, not after. That candour costs us the odd job. We keep it anyway.
What a wash cannot fix: paint that has oxidised and gone chalky, rust stains bleeding from old fixings, cracked or drummy render, and marks that have penetrated the surface rather than settled on it. If your walls have any of these, we will tell you before we start — a wash will improve them, not erase them. Better to hear that from us on day one than discover it yourself an hour after we leave.
Your exact number takes about a minute
Ranges are useful; your number is better. Schmick's instant quote asks a handful of questions about your home — storeys, wall area, condition — and returns a firm, bookable price in about 60 seconds. Firm means firm: it holds unless the place turns out to be materially different from what you described. No site visit, no callback, no salesperson pacing your driveway with a clipboard.
If the walls need doing, the gutters and windows usually do too — bundling services onto one visit saves 5 to 15%, and the Schmick Plan handles the whole exterior on a schedule from $89 a month. But start with the wash. Get your number, check it against the ranges above, and book it if it stacks up. Two minutes, all in.