** PINE STRAW WARNING:

Pine straw is very decorative in landscaping but it is extremely flamable. Be careful that it doesn't get dried out.

** From time to time, some of our customers ask us in what order they should get the exterior of their homes cleaned. And how often it should be cleaned in order to maintain it.

We would suggest that you start at the top with gutter cleaning. How often you clean your gutters would depend on a few things like how often you rake the leaves in your yard. If you do a lot of heavy raking in your yard, then you probably have a lot of leaves in your gutters, and would probably want to get them cleaned one to two times a year. Moderate raking would probably be once a year. And very light raking would probably only need to be cleaned every one and a half to two years.

The order of the next thing you would have cleaned would be any Pressure Washing. This will remove any mold and mildew from your house, walks, drives, patios, decks... If you have heavy mold and mildew buildup then you would probably want to have it pressure washed once a year. This should keep your walkways from being slippery and keep the stains from setting in. If you have moderate mold & mildew then you would probably want to get it cleaned every one and a half to two years. And light mold and mildew should be cleaned every two years.

The finishing touch would be your windows. And boy it is the icing on the cake. Most of our customers get their windows cleaned once a year inside and out. Some get a touch-up outside only cleaning every six months. And they say their windows always look beautiful.

** A word about Gutter Guards

If your thinking about putting wire gutter guards on your home, don't waste your time or money. Pine straw and leaves still get in your gutters. And they'll still need to be cleaned out.

But that's not the worst part. 

The worst part is that the pine straw and leaves get stuck on top of your roof. We can't tell you how many times we've seen a tree sapling growing on a roof because of the build-up of leaves.

Wire mesh gutter guards are bad, they can damage your roof, so be careful.