Wood Front Doors

propressurewashing

propressurewashing

New member
I run across a lot of residential properties that have nice wooden stained front doors. While these doors look nice and will repel water and chemicals if properly maintained - they will look aweful if you get water and housewash mix on one that does not have a pretty fresh coating on it. My one and only real customer complaint in 8 years was a "damaged" front door. We did not "pressure wash" it but it did get wet and maybe got some house wash mix on it and it dried.

Question is - do you cover these doors? wipe them off? rinse with lots of fresh water? warn the customers?

I always take a before picture incase the customer tries to say I damaged an already damaged door...

I don't want to have to pay to restain another one of these ever again if I can help it!

Daniel Simmons
http://www.pressurewashingpearland.com/texas-commercial-cleaning.htm
http://www.pressurewashingpearland.com/texas-house-siding-stucco-brick-cleaning.htm
 
Same here, we always wet the doors first then spray around it and make sure the door is rinsed several times. You have to also watch out that water does not go in through the door cracks.
 
I take a plastic drop cloth from Dollar General. It cost $1.25. Open the door wrap it and close the door. Better safe than sorry. I have had issues even with wetting the doors and rinsing after.
 
If the poly is really old on some wooden doors it doesn't take much at all to mess the coating up. You can usually tell when you touch the door and you get little pits of polyurethane cracking. In those cases even hitting with water from a ball valve could be enough pressure to "damage" it, although homeowner should be made aware the door is in immediate need of refinishing.

I like Mark's idea, wrapping around the door thats pretty smart. If they have the same kind of wood as trim or those doors with windows on the side I guess you would need to cover the whole thing from the outside.
 
I hate these especially oxidized paint. Sealed is a different story, an opportunity for wood restoration. 9-12 screws and put it on horses.Refinishing sold before hand would save that liability. I have refinished doors when working as a finisher in a cabinetry shop, and have done it for customers that show an interest in preserving their homes entry-way. The problem is that refinishing has more tire kickers than pressure washing.
 
If the the doors are in direct sunlight there will be issues if they haven been cared for. Just use a hose to rinse after wetting. Doors on porches clean up very nice . Never had a problem with wood. I have had more issues with very chalky painted metal doors ( way more) .

I can see why people cover doors . Doors can be very expensive. I got called to finish a new install of 15k mahogany doors last year( reg client). I told him to spend another 10k to extend to front overhang so the sun won't hit the bottom one third of the door. I was serious! I had stripped and restored the whole house. The original doors where recked by the sun the bottom one third .
 
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