How long a house wash actually takes
A single-storey soft wash takes most of a morning. Two storeys usually take most of a day. Heavy moss, tight side access and delicate landscaping push it longer. Much of that time is dwell — the solution sitting on the wall doing the work, not idle crew. Schmick's house soft wash starts at $300, with most single-storey homes landing between $420 and $960.
A morning for one storey, most of a day for two
Book a soft wash on a single-storey home and the crew is generally on site for most of a morning. Set up, pre-wet, apply, wait, rinse, pack down. Two storeys is most of a day — not because the upper walls are twice as dirty, but because everything above head height needs poles, ladders or a longer reach, and every metre of that is slower and more careful. Plan on half a day and a full day respectively, and you will rarely be surprised.
That is an honest average, not a stopwatch promise. A compact semi with clean render and open access on both sides can be finished before morning tea. A rambling federation place with three wings, a deck, a pergola and a hedge on every boundary will fill the morning and lean into the afternoon. The variable is seldom wall area alone. It is how long it takes to get a hose, a lance and a person safely to every part of that wall.
The sequence, start to finish
The order matters more than the gear. First, everything green and living gets a soak — garden beds, hedges, the lawn against the wall, anything sitting under a downpipe. Wet foliage does not drink solution. That step takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a clean house and a bald garden. Then the solution goes on, working low to high so nothing runs dry across dirty surface and leaves a streak you will be looking at until the next wash.
Then it sits. Then it is rinsed from the top down at low pressure, so gravity carries the loosened growth off the wall rather than driving it into the cladding. Glass, sills and anything that caught overspray get a pass. Plants get a second rinse. Then the crew packs down, which on a tight site takes nearly as long as the washing did. None of those steps can be usefully hurried, and one of them is the reason people think a soft wash is slow.
Dwell time is not idle time
The stretch where nothing appears to be happening is the stretch doing the work. Soft washing cleans with chemistry and contact time: the solution has to sit on the surface long enough to kill the mould, lichen and algae holding the grime in place. Cut that short and you are rinsing dirty water off a wall that is still colonised. It looks better for a fortnight and greens up again by spring. The dwell is the treatment. Everything either side of it is logistics.
This is precisely what a pressure-washing crew substitutes pressure for. Time is expensive; a high-pressure wand is not. Blast the wall hard enough and it will look clean by lunchtime — along with the paint edges, the render, the mortar and whatever was sitting behind the cladding joints. If someone quotes a house wash and is gone in ninety minutes, you did not find a faster crew. You bought a harsher job with a shorter-lived result and a repair bill that shows up later.
What adds hours, and what more hours cannot fix
Three things reliably add time. Heavy growth: a shaded south wall carrying years of lichen often needs a second application and a second dwell, because the first pass lifts the top layer and reveals the rest. Tight side access: a 700mm passage with an air-conditioning unit, a bin store and a fence means hoses get carried rather than dragged, and every trip is a round trip. And delicate landscaping — established camellias, a herb bed, a pond — which means slower movement, more masking and considerably more rinsing.
More hours will not fix everything, and it is worth knowing that before anyone arrives. A soft wash removes what is living on the surface and the grime bound up in it. It does not restore chalky, oxidised paint, lift rust bleed from a steel lintel, undo staining that has soaked deep into porous render, or make a thirty-year-old wall a different colour. What you get is the best version of the surface you already own. If the honest answer is paint, we will tell you that instead.
Planning the day, and pinning down the price
Plan around the block of time rather than a precise finish. One storey: keep the windows shut and the washing off the line for a morning. Two storeys: give it the day and move the car off the driveway. You do not need to be home, but the crew needs a working tap and a clear path down both sides. Pets inside. Anything precious on the deck or the paving moved once, at the start, rather than negotiated around for five hours.
The cost is easier to pin down than the clock. House soft wash starts at $300, and most single-storey washes land between $420 and $960 by wall area; a second storey adds about 40%, which tracks neatly with the extra time it takes. Bundle it with gutters or windows on the one visit and the combined job runs 5–15% cheaper. The instant quote reads your address against the live price book and returns a firm, bookable price in about 60 seconds, with no site visit.