Homework

This weekend has been interesting in that I have been working a lot. Some home stuff, some employment stuff. A few weeks ago, we bought a power washer that was on sale at Lowe's. I have been wanting to work on the oil stains in the driveway, the wooden fence between our property and our neighbor's, and find a better method of cleaning the aluminum siding than spraying with a bleach and water solution and then hosing it down.

I started working on the oil stains. I got some of the oil up in the past using just Awesome degreaser and a hose. Using just water and the dirt blaster attachment did OK. Now I still have some discoloration, so maybe some scrubbing and a detergent solution with the pressure washer next time.

I found out quickly how disgustingly dirty the driveway pad really was. I discovered that I had probably better do the entire pad, not just the oil affected area. I worked 4.5 hours straight on Saturday alone and did about two thirds or so of the concrete. I had to work on Sunday to fix a problem at work and continued a while after getting back home.

Teresa wanted to try it out, so I let her do some of the power washing. My forearms are a bit fatigued from holding that trigger handle for hours on end. My back is a bit sore from stooping to wash the driveway. But at least the entire pad is done.

Who knows how many years it has been since the concrete was cleaned, if ever. It sure looks a lot better now. I also have the wooden fence to do. It is covered with algae and looks horrible. It has since I bought this house and I have wanted to clean that fence from early on. That was 3.5 years ago. I tried powerwashing a small section of the fence and it looks a lot better. Next is the entire fence, the driveway strips, the front walkway (that looks horribly dark from dirt and algae), the bird bath, and the front porch. Then maybe we can think about giving the house a bath. We have done the bleach thing on the siding at least twice since living here. I see a few areas that need attention.

I didn't buy the top of the line washer. I bought the low end, but I also figured that it should be just fine for around my little castle. It is certainly doing the job and I have no complaints. The unit is lightweight and portable. It is electric powered, not gas. I did see a low end gas powered one just yesterday for about twice what I paid. For my purposes, this one works just fine.