How to Get Your Home's Exterior Professionally Cleaned in Des Moines (Without Wrecking It)

Here's the call we get more than any other. Someone hires the cheapest exterior cleaning quote in town. The crew shows up, blasts the whole house with a pressure washer, roof included, and it looks great when they pull out of the driveway.

Four months later the black streaks are back, worse than before. There's a soft spot in the siding that wasn't there in spring. And the cheap company stopped answering the phone.

We see it every season. So before you hire anyone to clean your home's exterior in Des Moines, I want to walk you through how this actually works. What gets cleaned, what it should cost, and the one mistake that turns a $400 job into a $4,000 repair.

This is the stuff a good contractor should tell you up front. Most won't. So let's get into it.

What "exterior cleaning" actually covers

Quick version: exterior cleaning isn't one thing. It's your siding, your roof, your concrete, your gutters, and your windows, ideally handled as one system instead of five separate jobs.

Most people call us about siding because that's the part you see from the driveway every day. But by the time the siding looks dirty enough to bug you, the rest of the house has usually been collecting the same grime for just as long.

Here's what a full exterior clean usually includes:

• Siding (vinyl, fiber cement, brick, stucco) washed of algae, mildew, and pollen
• Roof treated for those black streaks and any moss or lichen
• Concrete like driveways, walkways, and patios stripped of oil and organic staining
• Gutters cleared and brightened so they stop streaking down your fascia
• Windows washed inside and out so the whole job actually looks finished

You can book these one at a time. Most people shouldn't, and I'll explain the money reason for that in a minute. First, the thing that matters most.

See our exterior cleaning services →

Soft wash vs pressure wash: the one thing that protects your home

If you remember nothing else from this guide, remember this. Hard surfaces get high pressure. Soft surfaces get a soft wash. Mixing those up is how homes get damaged.

Pressure washing blasts water at high force. It's perfect for concrete, brick, and pavers, where the dirt sits on top and the material can take a beating.

Soft washing uses low pressure, closer to a garden hose, plus a cleaning solution that actually kills the algae and mold at the root. That's the only safe way to clean siding and roofs.

Same story with siding. Too much pressure cracks the panels and forces water behind them, where it gets trapped against the wood and grows mold inside your walls. You won't see it for months. Then it shows up as a stain or a soft spot, long after the crew is gone.

A real pro uses both methods in the same visit. Pressure where it belongs, soft wash where it's required. That's the whole game.

Read our full breakdown of soft wash vs pressure wash →

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What exterior cleaning costs in Des Moines

Most Des Moines homeowners spend somewhere in the low-to-mid hundreds for a single service, and more for a full-property clean that covers every surface at once.

I'm going to be straight with you about why I can't give you one number. Your price depends on the size of your home, how many stories it has, what shape the surfaces are in, and how much of the property you want done. A two-story house with five years of roof algae is a different job than a clean ranch.

See typical Des Moines prices for each service →

Now the part worth understanding. The full package is not the sum of those rows. When a crew is already at your house, set up, with water running, adding the roof, the driveway, or the windows costs a lot less than booking each one as its own trip later. That's why bundling usually runs ten to twenty percent cheaper than doing it piecemeal.

So when someone tells you a full exterior clean is an upsell, it's actually the opposite. It's cheaper math.

House wash or a full exterior clean? Here's how to choose →

And the cheapest quote? It usually costs the most over time, because a pressure-blasted surface looks clean for a few weeks and then the algae grows back faster than before, since it was never actually killed. You end up paying twice.

Get an exact quote for your home →

Why central Iowa is so hard on your home's exterior

Here's something I've learned cleaning homes around the Des Moines metro. Our climate is rough on exteriors in a way a lot of homeowners don't realize.

Four things are working against your house year round:

• Humid summers feed algae on roofs and siding, especially on the shady sides
• Spring pollen coats everything in a sticky film that traps dirt and moisture
• Freeze-thaw winters drive water into concrete and grout and break surfaces down
• Mature tree cover in neighborhoods like Beaverdale, Clive, and Urbandale drops shade and organic debris all over your roof and north walls

None of this hits one surface at a time. It hits the whole house at once. That's the real reason whole-property cleaning makes more sense here than it might somewhere dry.

How to tell your home is overdue

Most people wait too long because they're watching the wrong thing. They're looking at the front of the house. You want to look at the parts that never get sun.

Walk around to the north side of your home and the shaded walls. That's where trouble always shows up first. If you see any of these, you're past due:

• Black streaks on the roof. That's not dirt or aging shingles. It's a living algae, and if it's on your roof it's already starting on your siding.
• Green or black growth on north-facing siding. Same organism, riding the same humidity.
• Dark stripes running down your gutters. Sometimes called tiger striping. It's oxidation plus grime and it won't rinse off with a hose.

The north-side rule is your early warning system. By the time the sunny front of the house looks bad, the shaded sides have been bad for a while.

Here's what those black streaks really mean →

How often you should clean it

Short answer: most Iowa homes do well with a full exterior clean once a year, usually late spring or early summer.

Some surfaces need a closer eye than that. Your gutters fill twice a year, once with spring seeds and once with fall leaves. Your roof can stretch to every year or two. But the shaded walls always go first, so check them each spring and let them tell you when it's time.

The reason an annual rhythm matters isn't just looks. It's cost. A house cleaned every year has light, surface-level growth that comes off fast and cheap. A house that's been ignored for five years has algae rooted deep into the roof and siding, which takes more product, more time, and more money to fix. Waiting always costs more.

See our full surface-by-surface services →

How to choose a Des Moines exterior cleaner

This is the part that actually protects you, so don't skip it. Picking the right company comes down to a few questions most homeowners don't know to ask.

Ask these before you hire anyone:

• "Do you soft wash roofs and siding?" If they say they pressure wash everything, thank them and keep looking. That's the answer that tells you they'll damage your home.
• "Are you insured?" If someone gets hurt on your property or your home gets damaged, an uninsured crew leaves you holding the bill.
• "Can I see real before-and-afters from homes near me?" Local, recent, real photos. Not stock images pulled off the internet.
• "Is the quote flat and itemized?" You want to know the price before they show up, with no surprises on the day.

A company that answers those well is a company that knows what it's doing. A company that gets cagey is telling you something too.

The reason local matters here isn't just feel-good small business stuff. A crew that works Des Moines homes every week knows our algae, our pollen seasons, our freeze-thaw, and which neighborhoods grow what. That knowledge is the difference between a clean that lasts a season and a clean that lasts a month.

Next steps

If your home's exterior is looking tired, here's how I'd start.

1. Walk the north side of your house this week. Look at the roof, the shaded siding, and the gutters. That tells you how overdue you really are.
2. Decide if it's one surface or the whole house. Nine times out of ten, if the roof is streaking, the siding and gutters are right behind it.
3. Get a flat, itemized quote from a local company that soft washes roofs and siding. Ask the four questions above before you book.

When you're ready, we're happy to take a look. A quote is free, there's no pressure, and we'll tell you straight what your home actually needs, even if that's less than you expected.