Pressure Washing Costs NSW 2026 - Get Free Quotes

Pressure Washing Costs in NSW

A single driveway costs $180 to $400 and a double $300 to $650, paths and paving run $150 to $450, a house exterior wash sits between $400 and $1,200 depending on storeys and area, and a roof soft wash costs $600 to $2,400. A deck or patio is $150 to $500, fencing runs $120 to $400 per side, and operators charging by time instead of by area generally sit between $70 and $130 an hour. Those figures assume reasonable access and a surface that has been cleaned at some point in the past decade, both of which move the number quickly when they are not true. A driveway carrying ten years of established lichen and no vehicle access can price closer to a small house wash than to another driveway. Small items such as a single path or one side of a fence rarely stand on their own, because the minimum charge swallows them whole. Batching several surfaces into one visit is the practical way to get value out of the attendance.

Most established operators quote by area rather than by hour, and that basis is usually better for you. A square metre rate can be checked against the actual size of your driveway, whereas an hourly figure gives you no way of knowing whether the job will take two hours or five. Broader service pricing is covered at pressure cleaning, where the same rate structures apply across a wider range of exterior work. Measuring the area yourself before you request quotes takes ten minutes with a tape and puts you in a position to compare like with like. Both bases are common enough that the first thing to establish is which one you are being offered.

Minimum call outs apply almost everywhere and they shape how small jobs get priced. Most operators will not attend for less than $150 to $250 regardless of the area involved, because the travel, setup, water connection and pack down take much the same time whether the work runs twenty minutes or two hours. That is why a single path quoted on its own can look absurdly expensive measured against a square metre rate. Adding the front steps, the side path and one fence line to the same visit costs far less than arranging three separate attendances.

What You Pay For

The machine is the least important thing you are buying. Domestic units from Karcher, Bosch or Ryobi and commercial machines from Gerni, Nilfisk, Spitwater or Jetwave differ in flow rate and durability, not in any capability that changes what is possible on a driveway. The same surface cleaned by two operators with similar equipment can look completely different depending on technique, how long any product was left to work, and whether chemical was used at all. Flow rate, measured in litres a minute, tells you more about how quickly a large area gets covered than the pressure figure printed on the box. What you are paying for is the judgement about which setting, which nozzle and which product suits the surface in front of them.

Chemistry does more of the work than pressure on most surfaces. Mould, algae and lichen are living growth, not dirt sitting on top of the surface, so they are killed by an appropriate cleaning solution and then rinsed away once dead. That is why a competent operator applies a product, allows it time to work, and only then uses moderate pressure to remove what is no longer attached. Blasting living growth off at high pressure takes the surface layer with it and leaves the root structure behind, which is why a roof cleaned that way looks green again within two summers. Dwell time is the part of the process that cannot be rushed, and it is the first thing to disappear when a job has been underpriced. Asking how long the product will be left on the surface is a reasonable question and the answer tells you a good deal.

Containment equipment is a genuine cost and it is the line that cheaper quotes leave out. Drain covers, berms, vacuum recovery units and the time taken to deploy them all add to a job, and an operator who has invested in that gear prices accordingly. It is the clearest single difference between an established business and somebody who bought a machine at a hardware store last month. None of it is visible in a finished driveway, which is exactly why it vanishes from the cheapest number on the page.

Public liability insurance is worth confirming because it is not universal in this trade. Damage from pressure washing happens often enough that most operators of a few years standing have a story about it, whether water forced under cladding, a blown window seal, stripped mortar or paintwork lifted clean off a wall. Cover is what stands between you and an argument about who pays for the repair. Ask for the certificate of currency rather than accepting a verbal assurance, and check the expiry date printed on it. A business carrying proper cover will send it through without hesitation.

Water is usually yours unless the quote says otherwise. Most operators connect to an outside garden tap and draw from your supply, some carry tanks for properties without a connection, and a few charge for the tank when they use it. General exterior cleaning falls under cleaning services, where the same arrangement applies. Where water restrictions are in force the position is worth confirming at booking, not on the morning.

Selling a property is the most common reason people book this work, and the return on it is usually good. A clean driveway, washed paths and a roof free of black streaking change the first impression a buyer forms from the footpath before they have opened the front gate. Agents routinely put exterior cleaning near the top of a pre listing list because the cost is small against the effect on the photographs. The work suits the fortnight before the shoot rather than the week of the open home, since surfaces need to be fully dry and any sealing needs time to cure. Booking earlier than feels necessary leaves room for the weather to interfere without pushing the campaign back. It also gives you time to deal with anything the wash exposes, such as a section of render that turns out to be lifting.

Cost by Surface

Concrete driveways are the most commonly quoted job and the most straightforward one. Plain concrete tolerates reasonable pressure, the area is simple to measure, and per square metre pricing is the norm. Oil staining and tyre marks are usually treated as extras, because they need a degreaser and additional dwell time instead of more pressure. Combined clean and seal packages are quoted as driveway cleaning and sealing and are quoted as a single job. Ask whether staining sits inside the price or outside it, since that is where two otherwise identical quotes tend to diverge.

Paving and exposed aggregate need more care and cost slightly more per square metre. Jointing sand between pavers is easily blown out by a narrow jet, and exposed aggregate can lose stones where the pressure is wrong, so both call for a wider fan and a lighter touch that takes longer to cover the same ground. Rejointing afterwards is sometimes necessary and it is better discussed at quoting stage than discovered on the day. Sand itself is inexpensive, but the labour to sweep and compact it back into the joints is not.

House washing is priced by storeys and wall area rather than by floor plan. A single storey brick veneer is straightforward work from the ground, while a two storey rendered house needs extended poles or elevated access, and the difference between those two jobs is significant. Render care belongs with render and texture coating, which matters here because render and face brick behave differently under the same wash. Say how many storeys you have when you request a quote, since it is the single detail that most changes the figure.

Roofs are the most expensive item on most quotes and the most frequently damaged. Pricing depends on roof area, pitch, height and material, and a steep two storey roof can cost double a low pitched single storey one of similar area. Roof specific pricing is broken down at roof cleaning costs for a fuller breakdown. The safe method for almost every domestic roof is a low pressure chemical treatment, not a high pressure blast, and the two are not interchangeable. Get the proposed method written on the quote instead of agreed in conversation.

Timber decks occupy the most delicate end of the range. Softwood in particular is easily furred and gouged, and the marks left by a nozzle held too close follow the exact path it travelled in a way that no amount of further washing will remove. The correct approach uses a wide fan at low pressure together with a deck cleaning product that does the lifting. Restoration work is handled under timber deck restoration where boards have already been damaged. Most decks are cleaned as preparation for a coating instead of as an end in themselves, so the timing matters more than it does elsewhere. A deck washed and then left bare through a wet month will need doing again before the oil goes on.

Rendered and painted walls need a different conversation from bare masonry, and the finish tells you which one you are having. Acrylic texture coatings and modern membranes tolerate a gentle wash well, while older painted render may be chalking or already lifting at the edges. Run a hand across the surface and look at your palm, because a chalky residue means the coating has reached the end of its life. A wall in that condition will fail faster and more visibly after any wash, so cleaning is not what it needs. That is a repainting conversation, and it is worth having before you spend money on the wrong service.

Where the Water Goes

This is the part of pressure washing that most quotes never mention, and it matters a great deal in New South Wales. Stormwater drains discharge to creeks, rivers and the ocean without any treatment at all, which is why the state environment regulator has run a long standing public campaign on the point that the drain is only for rain. Anything entering a kerbside pit reaches open water within hours along most of the coast. Raising the question before you compare prices tells you quickly which operators have thought about it.

Under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 it is against the law to place material where it can flow into a waterway and cause pollution. The definition of waters in that legislation is broader than people assume, extending to stormwater channels, creeks, lakes, swamps and dams, not just rivers. Environmental regulation is administered by the NSW EPA, which publishes guidance for cleaning contractors on the point. Detergent, degreaser and the organic slurry washed off a roof all count as material for these purposes. So does the sediment lifted from a driveway that has not been touched in years.

Reforms that took effect in 2024 roughly doubled penalty notice amounts for many common offences. Water pollution now attracts on the spot fines in the order of fifteen thousand dollars for an individual and thirty thousand for a corporation on a first offence, with higher amounts again for a repeat. Councils as well as the state regulator can act on a report, and both do. A neighbour photographing discoloured water entering a kerbside pit is all it takes to start the process, and the photograph is often enough on its own. The point for a householder is that the person who causes or permits the pollution is the one exposed, which is not always only the contractor. Treating containment as a commercial question instead of an environmental nicety is the sensible position, and the specifics are worth confirming with the regulator if a large job is involved.

What compliance looks like in practice is not exotic. Drain covers or bungs on nearby pits, berms or sandbags directing flow away from the kerb, collection and vacuum recovery where the job produces meaningful contamination, and disposal to sewer or a licensed facility rather than to the gutter. Water quality guidance is published by the NSW environment department for anyone who wants the detail. Ask what containment gear the operator carries and where the collected water ends up afterwards, because the second half of that question is the one that gets skipped.

Roof cleaning carries the highest risk for this reason. Roof and gutter downpipes generally connect straight into the stormwater system, so everything washed off a roof reaches a waterway within minutes unless the downpipes are temporarily disconnected and the water captured. Temporary disconnection and capture at the downpipe is the standard remedy and it is not difficult, though it takes time and somebody has to do it. Blocked lines are covered at commercial gutter cleaning where the downpipes turn out to be the underlying problem. Ask specifically how it will be handled before a roof job proceeds.

Plants and garden beds need protecting before any chemical goes on, and this is the detail most often skipped on a domestic job. Cleaning solutions used on roofs and render will burn foliage and can kill established shrubs outright. A careful operator wets the beds down first so the leaves are already saturated, covers whatever sits close to the wall, and rinses the surrounding soil afterwards to dilute anything that has landed. Pot plants get moved instead of covered, since a sheet over a pot traps the spray against the leaves. Replacing a mature hedge costs considerably more than the wash did, so it is worth asking what will be used and whether anything needs preparing beforehand.

Asbestos and Older Homes

New South Wales carries a great deal of housing stock that predates the phase out of asbestos products, and this is the most serious issue on the page. Fibro cladding, eaves and soffit sheeting and corrugated cement roof sheeting are all common on houses built before 1990, particularly across western Sydney, the Central Coast and the older parts of regional centres. Eaves are the trap, because a house can be brick from the ground up and still carry asbestos cement linings under the roof edge. The same applies to a laundry wall, a garage or an under house enclosure added later. The year the house was built is the first thing to establish and the year any additions went on is the second.

High pressure water cleaning of asbestos cement is prohibited rather than discouraged. Directing a jet at bonded sheeting erodes the surface and releases fibres into both the water and the air, converting a stable material into a contamination event across your property and any neighbouring one. No cleaning result justifies that, and there is no technique that makes it acceptable. An operator who treats the question casually has told you what you need to know about the rest of their practice.

The contamination spreads further than people anticipate. Fibres carried in wash water end up in the soil, in garden beds, on paths and in the stormwater system, which means the affected area is far larger than the wall that was cleaned. Remediating a property afterwards involves assessment, controlled removal and clearance, not a hose down. Removal work is covered at asbestos roof removal where a roof is the material in question.

Identifying the material is not something to guess at from the ground. Asbestos cement looks much like the modern fibre cement products sold by James Hardie under names such as Scyon, and from six metres below in poor light the two are effectively indistinguishable. The difference matters enormously, so testing by a competent person is the only reliable answer on a house of the relevant age. Assessment and removal sit at asbestos removal. A sample test costs very little against the cost of getting the answer wrong.

An operator who asks about the age of your house before quoting is doing the job properly. Somebody proposing to pressure clean the eaves of a nineteen seventies fibro house without raising the question either does not know or does not care, and neither explanation is one you want on your property. Safe work practices in this trade fall under SafeWork NSW, which publishes guidance on working with asbestos containing materials. The silence itself is the warning sign, not anything actually said. Keep looking, because operators who do ask are not hard to find.

Solar panels are worth flagging separately, because they appear on more New South Wales roofs every year and they do not take pressure at all. A jet directed at a panel can force water past the frame seal, damage the anti reflective surface coating and void the manufacturer warranty. None of that is worth a marginally cleaner panel, and a dusty panel loses far less output than most people assume. Panels need soft brushing with deionised or filtered water instead of pressure, which is a different service using different equipment. Any operator washing a roof with an array on it should be working around the panels instead of over them. Mention the array when you book so it gets priced and planned instead of discovered on the day.

Soft Washing or High Pressure

Soft washing is a method rather than a marketing term, and the name describes the pressure and not the product. It applies a cleaning solution at low pressure, allows it to work on the organic growth, and rinses at a pressure closer to a garden hose than a jet. That cleans thoroughly without driving water into the building or eroding the surface underneath. The rinse is only removing what the chemistry has already killed.

For roofs it is the correct method in almost every case. Concrete and terracotta tiles, painted steel such as Colorbond and older cement products all suffer under high pressure, while the moss, lichen and algae that make a roof look dirty are biological and respond to chemistry instead. A roof cleaned properly stays clean longer, because the growth is killed at the root instead of knocked off at the surface. The visible difference on the day is minimal, which is part of why the cheaper method persists. The difference two years later is not minimal at all.

Render, painted surfaces and weatherboards belong in the same category as roofs. High pressure lifts paint, forces water behind cladding and into window frames, and damages render coatings, none of which is obvious while the operator is packing up. It shows up as blistering, staining or damp patches weeks later, by which point the connection is easy to dispute. Exterior coatings are covered at exterior house painting where a wash has exposed a wall needing more than a clean.

High pressure still has its place on hard, sound surfaces. Plain concrete driveways, paths, brick paving and masonry retaining walls all tolerate it well, provided the operator keeps the nozzle at a sensible distance and uses a fan instead of a pencil jet. Distance from the surface matters as much as the setting on the machine, which is why two operators with identical gear get different results. The skill being paid for is knowing which category each surface on your property falls into.

Expect soft washing to cost more per square metre and take longer. Chemical, dwell time and a second rinse pass all add to the job, and the operator is on site for the duration instead of moving quickly across the area. A soft wash roof quote sitting well below a high pressure one usually means the method is not what the paperwork describes. Ask which approach applies to each individual surface and not to the job as a whole, since a single property often needs both. Get the answer written down where it can be pointed to later.

Lead paint is a second consideration on older houses and it is separate from the asbestos question. Homes painted before the late nineteen seventies may carry lead based coatings, and blasting those surfaces spreads contaminated chips and dust across the soil and into the stormwater system in exactly the way the environment legislation exists to prevent. Testing kits are inexpensive and settle the question in an afternoon. Where the result is positive the work becomes a controlled preparation job instead of a wash, with containment, collection and disposal built into it. That changes the method and the price together. Where a pre 1980 house is being cleaned ahead of repainting, establishing the paint condition first is worth the delay.

Surfaces That Get Damaged

Concrete roof tiles are the most commonly damaged surface in this trade. Tiles from makers such as Monier and Bristile carry a factory applied surface coating that provides the colour and much of the water resistance, and high pressure strips it away. A stripped tile absorbs water, grows moss faster than it did before and takes on a chalky look within a season. The damage is permanent short of recoating the whole roof, which costs several times what the clean did. Terracotta behaves better but is not immune, particularly on older roofs where the glaze has already weathered.

Sandstone deserves particular care across the older Sydney suburbs. It is a soft stone, high pressure erodes the face and opens the grain, and once the weathered outer surface is lost the stone deteriorates faster than it did before it was cleaned. Sandstone flagging, garden walls and the base courses of older terraces all fall into this category. Low pressure and patience are the only sensible approach on any of them. Heritage listed properties and those inside conservation areas frequently have conditions attached to cleaning methods on stonework. Check with the council before booking where the property carries any heritage status, since the conditions can be specific about what may be used.

Mortar joints in older brickwork are vulnerable in the same way. Lime mortar in a pre war house is deliberately softer than the brick around it, so a jet directed straight at a joint will remove it, and the loss is not always obvious until the wall is wet. Repointing costs several times what the clean did and is slow work across a large elevation. On any wall built before the middle of last century the nozzle needs to stay well back and off the joint line.

Window and door seals fail more often than people expect. A jet directed at a frame drives water past seals designed to shed rain running down and not resist pressure driven across, and the water ends up on the sill or inside the wall cavity. Competent operators wash downward instead of upward and keep clear of openings for that reason. Cavity water rarely announces itself, and the stain that eventually appears on an internal wall is easy to attribute to something else months later. Walking the inside of the house after a wall wash and checking the sills is worth the five minutes.

Timber is easy to ruin and the damage is immediate and visual. Too much pressure raises the grain, gouges softwood and leaves stripe marks tracing the exact path the nozzle took across the board. A deck damaged that way needs sanding instead of washing to correct, and sanding back is quoted at timber deck restoration. Hardwood tolerates more than pine but is not immune, particularly on older boards that have already weathered.

Neighbours deserve a word before a job starts and it costs nothing to give it. Overspray carries further than people expect, particularly on a windy day and particularly where chemical is involved, so a car parked over the fence line or washing on a line next door is easily affected. A shared driveway or a boundary wall raises the further question of who is paying for what, which is better settled beforehand. Letting the people either side know the day before heads off most complaints before they start. A good operator will suggest it without being asked.

Pool surrounds carry considerations that a driveway does not. Wash water carrying cleaning product should not be allowed to run into the pool, since it upsets the chemistry and can take days of correction to bring back. Covering the pool or directing the flow away from it is part of doing the job properly, not an optional extra. Coping stones and travertine are frequently softer than they look and mark easily under a jet, which is a common and avoidable disappointment. Surfaces near a pool also carry salt and mineral deposits that behave differently from the same material elsewhere on the property. Point out where the fall runs before the work starts, because it is not always obvious to somebody seeing the yard for the first time.

Access, Height and Safety

Anything above single storey changes both the job and the price. Extension poles reach some second storey surfaces from the ground, elevated work platforms or scaffolding are needed for others, and roof work brings fall protection into the picture. Each of those steps adds hire cost on top of the labour rate, which is why a two storey quote is rarely double a single storey one but is never the same. Ground, pole and platform are effectively three different prices for what looks like the same wall.

Working on a wet roof carries real risk and deserves to be treated that way. A tiled roof carrying water and cleaning solution is considerably more slippery than one carrying rain alone. Roof access and fall protection are regulated, not optional, and an operator walking an unprotected two storey roof is taking a risk with your property as well as with themselves. Ask how the roof will be accessed and what fall protection is being used. It is a fair question and a professional operator will have a straight answer ready.

Injuries from the jet itself are a genuine hazard and not a theoretical one. Water at operating pressure penetrates skin and causes injection injuries that look minor on the surface and are not, which is why the nozzle is never directed at a person for any reason. Trigger control matters throughout the job, including while the operator is repositioning between surfaces. Keep children and pets well clear of the working area for the duration.

Electrical safety needs attention around a wet exterior. Power points, meter boxes, air conditioning units, outdoor lighting and solar equipment should all be avoided or protected before any water goes near them. Covering what cannot be avoided takes a few minutes and skipping those minutes rarely ends well. Panel cleaning is a separate service listed under solar panel cleaning and is a separate service for exactly this reason. Water forced into an outdoor socket is a hazard, not an inconvenience.

Gutters are best cleared after a roof wash rather than before it. Cleaning a roof pushes debris straight down into the gutters, so doing them first simply means doing them twice. Gutter work is priced at gutter cleaning and is frequently bundled with a roof job for that reason. Sequencing the two correctly saves a second visit and a second call out fee.

Timing the job around the weather changes the result more than most people expect. Cleaning solutions need dwell time to work, so a hot windy day dries the product before it has done anything and produces a poor result at full price. Rain within a few hours of a soft wash can rinse the treatment off before it has killed the growth, which wastes the visit entirely. Mild overcast conditions suit the work best, which is why late autumn and early spring are busy periods for established operators. An operator who reschedules because the forecast has turned is protecting your outcome and not being awkward.

Getting a surface to stay clean is a separate question from getting it clean, and it is where most of the value sits across a decade. Growth returns fastest where a surface stays damp, so trimming back overhanging branches, clearing the gutter line above a wall and improving drainage on a shaded path does more for the long term appearance of a property than washing it more often. A driveway under a large tree will need attention every couple of years regardless of what gets applied to it. Where the shade cannot be changed, sealing the surface and agreeing a maintenance interval in advance usually costs less than repeated deep cleans. Some operators offer a lighter maintenance wash at a reduced rate for properties they already service. Ask about it, because the rate for a surface in reasonable condition sits well below the rate for one that has been left.

What Drives the Price

Area is the primary driver and the one you can verify yourself. Measuring the driveway or paved area before requesting quotes lets you check a square metre rate against a fixed price and see whether the two agree. An operator quoting a flat figure without asking the dimensions is estimating, not pricing, and the estimate has to carry padding to be safe. Turning up with your own measurement changes that conversation entirely.

Condition matters as much as size on a neglected surface. A driveway cleaned annually needs one pass, while one left for a decade with established lichen needs chemical treatment, dwell time and often two passes, which can double the labour on identical area. Photographs let an operator price that accurately instead of building in a margin for the unknown. Take them in daylight and include the worst section and not the best. A quote resting on a flattering photograph gets revised on the day.

Height and access change the equipment before they change the labour. Ground level work needs a machine and a hose, second storey needs poles or a platform, and roof work needs fall protection, with each tier adding hire cost as well as time. Be specific about storeys and about how a machine reaches the rear of the property when you request a quote. A narrow side gate is worth mentioning, since a trailer mounted unit cannot always get past one.

Runoff containment is a real line item on some properties and almost nothing on others. A driveway falling straight to a kerbside stormwater pit needs meaningful containment work, while a back courtyard draining to a garden bed needs very little. An operator pricing the harder case properly will be dearer than one ignoring it, and that gap is not a saving on your side. Look at where your own site falls before you read the quotes. One walk around the property is usually enough to work it out.

Sealing afterwards is a separate service at a separate price. Sealing concrete or paving after cleaning slows the return of staining and growth and makes the next clean easier, and it is generally quoted per square metre on top of the wash. Protective coatings are quoted at driveway sealing. The surface has to be completely dry first, which in practice means a return visit instead of the same afternoon, so budget for two attendances if you want both.

Sydney Metro Costs

Sydney has the largest pool of operators in the state and domestic pricing is competitive as a result. What varies most between properties is access, water availability on apartment sites and how close the work sits to a stormwater pit, much as it does at window cleaning. Two houses in the same street can carry a noticeable price difference on those grounds alone. The eastern and inner suburbs skew toward access constraints, while the larger blocks further out skew toward area. Neither is reliably dearer than the other once the site is properly understood.

Terraces and inner city properties bring access problems more than area problems. A rear courtyard reached only through the house, no kerbside space for a trailer mounted machine, and shared walls limiting where overspray can go all add time to a small job. An operator who has not seen the property is guessing at all three, and the guess rarely lands in your favour. A site visit or a set of photographs covering the approach as well as the surfaces answers the question.

Strata properties need the owners corporation involved before anything is booked. External walls, common driveways and roofs are typically common property and not part of your lot, and the cost of cleaning them is usually a scheme expense. Arranging the work yourself can leave you paying for something the scheme was responsible for, with no straightforward way to recover it. Check the position with the strata manager first and get the answer in writing where the amount is significant. Courtyards and balconies forming part of a lot are the usual exception, though even those can carry by-law conditions about what may be used.

Bushfire prone areas add a maintenance reason to clean that has nothing to do with appearance. Accumulated leaf litter, moss and debris on a roof and in the gutters is fuel, and clearing it forms part of preparing a property through the warmer months. That makes the timing of exterior cleaning a practical matter and not a cosmetic one across the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands and much of the coastal fringe. Combining a roof wash with a gutter clean before summer is more useful than doing either in isolation. Local fire service guidance sets out what preparation is recommended and is worth reading alongside any cleaning schedule. Book it in autumn or early spring instead of leaving it until the weather has already turned.

Regional NSW Costs

Regional pricing is broadly similar per square metre, but call out charges carry far more weight. Fewer operators cover much larger areas, travel gets built into the minimum charge, and a small job an hour from town can cost noticeably more than the same job in a suburb. The same pattern applies to related work such as concrete resurfacing. Where several properties on the same road can coordinate a visit, the travel component gets shared and the saving is real. It is worth asking the neighbours before booking if you are well outside a town.

Humid coastal areas need cleaning more often than inland ones. Mould, algae and lichen establish quickly along the north coast and through the wetter parts of the Illawarra, so a surface cleaned every two years there can look worse than one cleaned every five years west of the divide. Frequency drives lifetime cost far more than the individual price does. When comparing quotes in a humid area, the question worth asking is how long the result should last, not what the visit costs.

Water supply is a real consideration on rural properties. A house on tank water may not have much to spare for a full exterior wash at the end of a dry summer, and a house wash consumes more than people assume. Some operators carry their own tanks and charge for the water, which is a fair arrangement provided it appears on the quote. Bore water raises a different issue again, since mineral content can leave staining on light coloured render and pale paintwork. Ask what the operator intends to draw from before the day, not on it.

Older fibro is more common in regional housing stock than in newer suburban areas. Country towns and coastal villages carry a high proportion of pre 1990 cladding and roof sheeting, which makes the asbestos question more likely to arise, not less. Regional operators are generally alert to it because they meet it weekly. Raise the age of the house anyway when you request a quote, since assuming it has been considered is how it gets missed.

Commercial and strata work sits under obligations that a domestic job does not, and the distinction matters if you manage a property. Trade waste is the term for wastewater discharged to the sewer from a business activity, and it is regulated separately from ordinary household wastewater. A business washing down a forecourt, a carpark or plant is undertaking a commercial activity, which brings the water squarely into that category. Directing it to sewer generally requires an agreement with the water authority, not simply lifting a drain grate, and in the metropolitan area that agreement is with Sydney Water. Owners corporations arranging regular cleaning of common driveways fall closer to this end than to the domestic one. Ask any contractor quoting commercial work how they intend to dispose of the water and under what authorisation.

What to Look Out For

Ask how the runoff will be contained before you compare any prices. Allowing anything other than clean rainwater into a stormwater drain is an offence under state environment law, and penalty amounts were increased substantially in 2024. An operator who cannot explain their containment method in plain terms has probably not thought about it. Containment gear costs money to buy and time to deploy, and both are missing from the cheapest quote on most jobs. That is usually where the gap between two prices actually sits.

Tell every operator the age of your house without waiting to be asked. High pressure water on asbestos cement is prohibited, fibro cladding and cement roof sheeting are common on pre 1990 New South Wales housing, and the material cannot be reliably identified from the ground. An operator who does not raise it themselves should be asked why not. The answer will usually settle whether they get the job.

Do not accept high pressure on a tile roof. Tiles carry a factory coating that a jet strips permanently, soft washing is the correct method for almost every domestic roof, and a roof quote priced below a soft wash is unlikely to be one. Confirm the method in writing, particularly where the surface is going to be coated afterwards, as with concrete driveway work. Ask what the tiles are made of if you do not know, since the answer changes the method. A cheap roof number is the most common single way a property gets damaged in this trade.

Check public liability insurance and ask for the certificate, not the verbal assurance. No licence is required for general exterior cleaning, which means anyone can buy a machine and start quoting against established businesses on the same driveway. Damage happens often enough that cover is the thing standing between you and a dispute you cannot win. Statutory guarantees covering the work itself are enforced by the ACCC.

Be wary of a quote given without seeing the property or asking its size. Area, condition, height, surface type and drainage all change the price materially, so a flat figure offered over the phone rests on guesswork about five separate variables. Photographs are the minimum a remote quote should rest on, and a video walk around is better again. Contractor obligations are generally handled by NSW Fair Trading, which handles complaints about work in this category. Nothing about a driveway is standard enough to price blind.

What to Look for in a Quote in NSW

A pressure washing quote should list each surface separately with its area and rate, and state which method is proposed for each one. It should say what chemicals will be used and whether plants need protecting, explain how runoff will be contained and where the water ends up, and confirm whether your water supply is being used. Access equipment needed for height belongs on the document, along with public liability insurance and a certificate available on request. The runoff method and the surface by surface breakdown are the two items most often missing from a cheap quote. Anything the paperwork leaves blank is worth a follow up call before you accept it. A quote that survives those questions is usually the one to take.

Brief every operator on the same set of details. The approximate area of each surface, the age of the house, the number of storeys, what the roof and walls are made of, how bad the growth is and whether there is a stormwater pit near the work all change the scope of the job. Quotes prepared from different assumptions cannot be compared against each other in any useful way. Send the same photographs to each of them and note the same constraints.

The questions asked before a price is given tell you most of what you need to know. Somebody wanting photographs, asking what the eaves are clad in and checking where the water will run is scoping the actual work in front of them. A price offered on a suburb name and a rough size rests on nothing at all. The number matters less than the reasoning that produced it.

Settle the method, the containment and the insurance before you engage anybody. Confirm which surfaces are getting soft washed and which are getting high pressure, establish how the runoff is captured and where it goes, get the certificate of currency, and raise the age of the house. Related exterior work is grouped under roofing services, with paved areas at driveways and paving. Those four points settled in advance are what keeps a job from turning into an argument. Everything else on a pressure washing quote is detail by comparison.