How often should you pressure wash your driveway in Florida?

About once a year for most driveways, and every six to nine months for ones in heavy shade or that stay damp from sprinklers. You will see it coming: the concrete goes gray first, then the green and black shows up along the edges and in the shade.

Waiting longer does not hurt the concrete much, but the growth gets slippery and the clean takes longer.

Heat, humidity and shade. Mildew, mold and algae all grow on concrete that stays damp, and here concrete rarely gets the chance to dry out. Shade from trees and the house, irrigation overspray and leaves left to break down all speed it up.

Orange streaks are a different problem. Those are usually rust from sprinklers fed by well water, common out in Loxahatchee and The Acreage, and plain pressure washing does not lift rust. It needs a rust treatment.

Usually every one to two years, sooner on the shaded sides of the house. The north walls and anything under trees go green first.

Siding and stucco are washed at low pressure with a cleaning solution, not blasted, for the same reason screens are: high pressure drives water where it should not go and damages the surface. How to clean a pool screen enclosure explains the low pressure approach.

Once a year for most, and more often around the pool if the deck gets slippery. Pool decks stay wet, so growth comes back quickly, and a slick deck around a pool is a safety problem, not just a looks problem.

Pavers go dark fast in Florida shade, and slippery not long after. Clean pavers come back to the color they started as, and resealing afterward helps them stay that way longer. Salt water pools add one more reason to keep the deck rinsed, which salt or chlorine pool in Florida explains.

Yes, done wrong. Too much pressure or a nozzle held too close etches concrete and leaves permanent stripes, and it can blow the sand out of paver joints. A surface cleaner at the right pressure gives an even finish without gouging, which is what to look for in whoever does yours.

Any time works, but the end of the rainy season, in the fall, lasts longest because growth slows through the drier months. A wash in late spring looks great for summer gatherings, then the summer rain starts the growth again sooner.

Pretreating the growth, cleaning the surface evenly with a surface cleaner, edging along the borders, and rinsing everything off, including the walls and plants next to it. Done properly it is a couple of hours for a typical driveway.

The wash water should not carry debris into the street drains. UF/IFAS explains why anything washed into a storm drain ends up untreated in the environment. See pressure cleaning for what we clean and how it is priced.