Service Area

House Washing in Coker

Coker is where the county opens up. West of Northport on Highway 82 the subdivisions give out and the lots turn into acreage: a house set back from the road, a long drive that is concrete near the house and gravel the rest of the way, a pole barn or a metal shop building, and a field edge of red clay that blows onto everything when it dries out. A house wash in Coker is a bigger job than a house wash in town, and it is usually a different list.

We wash farmhouses, brick ranches, the newer vinyl and Hardie homes built on carved-off lots, and the shop buildings beside them. Metal roofs get washed too, which is a different method from shingles. Every job is priced in writing before we start, by the surface and its size, from a photo or a quick walk-around. On an acreage lot the walk-around is often the better way, because the shop and the drive add up.

The form is how to reach us, and a photo of the house from the road tells us most of what we need.

White farmhouse with a green metal roof on an open lot in Coker, with a long concrete driveway and a metal shop building beside it

Acreage homes, porches and shop buildings

Houses out here tend to have a deep front porch, and the porch is where the dirt shows first. Pollen, dust from the drive and mildew on the shaded end build up on the floor, the ceiling and the columns, and by midsummer the porch is a different color than the house. We wash the porch as part of the house: ceiling, columns, rails and floor, with the siding above it. Washing a farmhouse and its porch is a soft-wash job, done at low pressure with a cleaner that handles the mildew, because the painted wood and the vinyl both come off worse from a high-pressure wand.

The shop building or pole barn is usually metal siding over a slab, and it collects the same dust and algae the house does, only nobody washes it. We can. Metal siding takes a detergent wash and a low-pressure rinse, and the slab apron in front of the roll-up door, where the truck drips and the clay tracks in, gets a surface cleaner.

Decks and back porches on these lots are mostly treated pine, and they grey out fast under the humidity. Bringing a grey deck back is a wood-safe wash that lifts the grey and the mildew without fuzzing the boards, and it is a good job to pair with the house.

Metal roofs and red dust

A lot of Coker houses have standing-seam or exposed-fastener metal roofs, and metal grows a thin green film on the north slope and along the eave where dew sits. It does not streak the way a shingle roof does, but it dulls, and the gutters below it fill with the grit that washes down. A metal roof gets a soft wash the same way a shingle roof does, low pressure, a cleaner that kills the algae, and a rinse that runs the growth off into a rinsed gutter. We never walk a wet metal roof and we never pressure wash one, because high pressure finds its way into the seams.

Red dust is the other Coker problem. When a field or a gravel drive dries out, the clay goes airborne and settles on the lower siding, the garage door, the shop and the vehicles. After a rain it splashes up from the drive onto the foundation. Both are clay, not growth, and clay rinses off with water and the right amount of time. We treat the clay line separately from the mildew above it, and the result is one even color from the ground up.

Gutters on an acreage house run long and catch everything from the roof and the trees. We clear them by hand, flush the downspouts, and if the house has a metal roof we check the gutter brackets while we are up there, since the grit load is heavier. We work Monday through Saturday, 7am to 6pm, and answer quote requests the same day. A Coker house with a shop and a long drive is usually a full-morning visit.

What we wash in Coker

Houses: farmhouse, brick, vinyl and Hardie, with porches. Metal and shingle roofs. Shop buildings, pole barns and their slab aprons. Concrete drives, parking pads and sidewalks. Decks, fences and gates. Gutters. If it is on the property and it is dirty, it is probably on the list, and the photo tells us which parts you want done.

Coker shares a crew with Northport, so the same crew that covers Northport comes out Highway 82 on the same days, and runs south to Fosters and north to Samantha on the back roads. We wash houses, roofs and concrete across Tuscaloosa County: Tuscaloosa, Northport, Cottondale, Coker, Brookwood, Vance, Duncanville, Fosters, Coaling, Moundville, Holt, Lake View and Samantha.

Services we bring out here

Questions we get

Can you wash a house on a well in Coker?

Yes. We bring our own water for the wash, so a well and its pressure are not a problem. Let us know in the form so we plan the tank for the job.

Does a gravel drive affect the wash?

Only the concrete part gets a surface cleaner; gravel is left alone. The dust from the gravel is the reason the lower siding and garage door are coated, and that rinses off as part of the house wash.

Is a metal roof pressure washed or soft washed?

Soft washed, always. Pressure on a metal roof works water into the seams and around the fasteners. A low-pressure cleaner takes the green film off and a rinse carries it to the gutter.

Send a photo from the road

Stand at the end of the drive and take one picture of the house, one of the shop if you want it done, and one of the dirtiest side. Put them in the form and tell us which parts you care about. We write back with a price and a date, and nothing changes once we are there unless you add to the list.