The wash that fits the neighborhood, not just the house
Savannah is not one building stock, and a house wash that treats it as one misses half the job. Walk from the single houses around the squares, with their long side piazzas and soft lime-mortared brick, out to the stucco and tabby rows of the midtown bungalows and the Victorian District, and then further out to the vinyl and Hardie-board subdivisions of the Southside and Pooler. Three different houses, three different sets of finishes, and three different answers to how much pressure any of them can take. The method that protects a 1905 masonry facade would be overkill on a 2008 Hardie home, and the speed that works on a new subdivision would do permanent damage downtown.
So the honest starting point for a Savannah quote is not square footage - it is the age and material of the wall. When you call, we want to know whether you are dealing with painted wood clapboard, stucco over tabby, face brick, Hardie plank, or vinyl, and roughly when the house was built. That single answer routes the job to the right pressure, the right solution, and the right expectations, which is why we ask it before we ever throw out a number.
Why the old downtown masonry wants the softest touch on the market
The most delicate work in Savannah is not the showpiece mansions - it is the ordinary aged brick and stucco that ring the historic squares. Much of the old brick was laid in soft lime mortar, and a century of Lowcountry humidity has left much of it friable. Stucco here was frequently applied over tabby, the oyster-shell-and-lime material that was a local standard well into the 1800s, and it is softer and more porous than anything on a modern home. High pressure on that face will scour the surface, break the bond of old paint, and drive water into a wall that has already spent a hundred years absorbing moisture.
Those facades are cleaned the same way they should be maintained: at very low pressure, with a surface-matched solution doing the lifting and a gentle rinse carrying it away, and with a test patch on an inconspicuous corner before committing to a whole wall. If a contractor quotes a historic Savannah facade without ever asking what the mortar is made of, slow the conversation down. The person who does not know the difference between lime mortar and modern cement is the person most likely to cause the damage the repointing bill will blame on you.
What to clear before the crew arrives
A little prep on your side makes a wash faster, safer, and cheaper, and it is worth the ten minutes. Potted plants and yard furniture within a few feet of the walls should come inside or be moved to the far side of the yard, because they will get a spray of rinse water and a splash of solution no matter how careful the crew is. Anything against the foundation - a hose reel, a ladder, stacked lumber, trash cans - needs to move, because that is exactly the band of wall the wash needs to reach. Screens on open windows should be closed or the glass protected, and if you have a drip irrigation line running up the side of the house, note where it is so the crew does not pull on it.
The single most useful thing is a clear path to a working outdoor spigot with real flow. A low-flow or shut-off hose bib is the most common reason a scheduled wash runs long, and a long extension hose across the lawn is a trip hazard the crew will have to manage. Most of this is obvious once you think about it, but it is precisely the kind of thing that gets forgotten on the morning of the appointment and then costs everyone an extra half hour.
The piazza, the screened porch, and the ceilings you forget
Downtown and the midtown neighborhoods have one feature that inland markets rarely deal with: the long covered piazza and the screened side porch. These get as much of the growth as any wall, because they stay shaded and damp all day, and they are where the mildew is most visible because you sit under them. The porch ceiling directly above the furniture is frequently the worst spot in the house - the one surface nobody looks at until a guest does. A proper Savannah house wash scopes those ceilings and the underside of the piazza roof as part of the walls, not as an afterthought, and it cleans screen mesh at very low pressure so the splines stay seated.
If the screens and the framing are in worse shape than the walls - grey mesh, furred wood, a film you can feel on the rail - the work really is porch territory. For that, the honest booking is dedicated deck and patio cleaning scoped to the structure itself, and we would rather steer you there and do it properly than fold a half-done version into a wall wash.
What a wash will not undo
Two disappointments come up on Savannah homes more than anywhere else we work, and both are worth naming before you book. The first is peeling paint. A soft wash does not cause flaking paint, but it will loosen and carry away the film that is already failing, and on a wall that has been blistering for years the wash can leave it looking patchier than it did. If repainting is on the calendar, do the wash first and put the painter behind it - the coating needs a clean, salt-free, growth-free wall to grip, and that is precisely what a soft wash leaves behind. If repainting is not planned, we will be straight with you about whether the coating is sound enough for a wash to improve the look at all, and sometimes the honest verdict is that it is not.
The second is rust. Salt air off the river corrodes exposed metal - light fixtures, railing hardware, condenser fins, fastener heads - from the inside out, and no cleaning reverses that. We steer solution away from metal that is already corroding rather than treating it, and rust that has bled from a fastener back onto the siding will return as long as the fastener underneath is the one doing it. The durable answer to that stain is replacing the fitting, not washing the wall again.
How the schedule works in a coastal climate
There is no single calendar that fits every Savannah house, but there are two honest benchmarks. For the standard stock - Hardie, vinyl, painted wood on a normal lot - the useful rhythm is a wash every twelve to eighteen months, driven more by how quickly the shaded elevations re-green than by the calendar. For anything near the marsh, the river, or heavy live-oak canopy, the same house usually wants attention sooner, because the shade and the salt keep the surfaces damp and fed year-round.
What we do not do is sell you a yearly contract you do not need. If your house sits on an open lot, has no irrigation hitting the siding, and shows no growth on the north wall, a wash every two years may be plenty, and we would rather tell you that and see you less often than take money for a job that is not due yet. The cheapest version of this work is the regular one, because salt film and early algae come off gently and a few seasons of bonded buildup do not.
