What pressure washing costs around Portland: driveways, decks and siding

Most pressure washing jobs in the Portland area cost $265 to $601, with $433 the typical figure, and that's labour only, per November 2026 market data . One job means a house wash, or a driveway with its walks. What shifts it: the surface, how green it's gone, how many stories, and where the water ends up.

For how we quote and run a wash on the west side, see our pressure washing page. Below is just the money.

How much does pressure washing cost around Portland?

These are the rows we price from. Each one is a Portland-area market figure gathered in November 2026, and none of them is our quote yet. Putting them in one table shows which jobs get billed apart from the wash.

Our figure is per job. National sites mostly quote a per-square-foot rate, and their per-foot rates disagree with each other by a lot, so we don't publish one. "Labour only" means exactly that: the range pays for the work itself.

Where one job lands inside $265-$601 depends on what's on the list . Shade counts here. A walk tucked behind the house where the sun never reaches, or a slab under Douglas firs, stays damp longer and greens up faster than one in full sun, and thick growth takes extra passes.

What does it cost to pressure wash a driveway or walkway?

Concrete is the one surface that can take full pressure. Most crews run a surface cleaner on it, a round hood that spins the spray flat across the slab and leaves fewer stripes than a wand. What sets the price is the area, how much green or black growth has dug in, oil spots, and the number of joints between slabs or pavers, because those get edged by hand.

People ask what a 1,500 square foot driveway costs. For most west-side driveways, a wash of that size falls inside the $265-$601 range rather than above it .

Moss growing in cracks and joints comes out with the wash. We don't put down moss or algae killer afterwards; it's one of the things we don't offer . Sealing the slab once it dries is a second job: market figures put it at $300 to $1,500, typically $700, with materials included (November 2026). It's done as part of our garage floor and sealer work .

Up in West Slope, where many lots sit on a hill, drives and front steps often slope, and a slick green step there is a bigger deal than on a flat walk.

How much does it cost to wash a house, and does siding need a soft wash?

A typical two-story house wash around here still falls in the same $265-$601 range. The floor area of the house matters less than people expect. Stories matter more, since the upper wall means ladder work and longer reach, and so do the siding type and how much of each wall has turned green .

Painted wood siding gets low pressure and a brush. Blast it at full power and water can get pushed up behind the boards and paint can lift off in sheets, which turns a cleaning bill into a painting bill. Plenty of companies sell that gentler approach as a "soft wash" at a premium; what you're paying for is the method and the time, so ask what it actually involves .

Older houses have one more line. In Oregon, renovation, repair and painting jobs on houses from before 1978 fall under a lead-safe rule, and that includes prep such as scraping; touching under 20 square feet of outside paint is exempt. Lead-based paint is off our list entirely, which means peeling paint on an older house stays put rather than getting blasted loose . Houses in Cedar Mill and in Cedar Hills mostly went up in the 1950s through the 70s, so the question comes up there more often.

If the wash is the first step of a repaint, the cost belongs to the painting quote. What that runs is in exterior house painting cost.

How much does it cost to pressure wash a deck or a wooden fence?

Wood takes the least pressure of anything on the list. Too much raises the grain and leaves wand marks, and those marks show right through a new coat of stain. Most of the hours go into railings and spindles, and into fences that need both sides washed rather than one. Most deck or fence washes still land in $265-$601 .

Washing is often the step before stain. If you want both, the combined job is on deck and fence staining. For a deck, market data says $550 to $1,250 with $850 typical; a fence runs $500 to $2,000 with $1,000 typical; both include materials (November 2026; the fence row is an hours-times-local-rate estimate) . The wood has to dry before any stain goes on . Picking the weather window is the subject of when to paint or stain outside.

Bethany has a lot of houses built around 1990-2005, so plenty of decks and fences there have reached the grey, slightly green stage where a wash usually comes ahead of a first re-stain.

Why is pressure washing so expensive?

A labour-only price covers more than the time the wand is running. There's setup and breakdown, moving cars, furniture and planters, covering outlets, lights and plants, hand work at edges and corners, keeping the runoff in check, and the drive over. A small job carries most of that same overhead, which is why there's a minimum visit . For how our hourly billing and smallest visit work, read handyman cost per hour.

The water usually comes from your own outdoor spigot, so it shows up on your bill, not ours .

Renting a machine for a Saturday is cheaper, and on bare concrete it can work fine. The machine is the cheap part, though. The expensive mistakes are lifted paint, gouged deck boards and water driven behind siding, and those cost more to fix than the wash ever did.

What does a pressure washing price leave out?

A wash price covers washing. These are billed separately, or not offered by us at all:

• Moss and algae killers. We don't apply them, and we don't install zinc strips.
• Roofs. We don't pressure-wash roofs . Moss on a roof gets brushed and scraped off by hand instead; market figures run $225 to $750 a roof, typically $425, labour only (November 2026) . That falls under roof repair.
• Gutters. Priced on their own (third row of the table at the top); see gutter cleaning.
• Repairs the wash turns up. A clean surface shows what dirt was hiding: a soft deck board, a rotted siding end or trim piece, caulk that's let go. We price those separately as rot and siding fixes .

We also don't haul away debris or sell yearly wash plans.

Can handling the runoff add to the cost?

Dirty, soapy rinse water shouldn't run down the driveway and into the street grate. Keeping it out takes some work: blocking the drain, holding the water in the work area, letting only clean rinse water soak into lawn or gravel, or picking it up with a wet vacuum. Rules on wash water vary from one city to the next, so if you're unsure, ask yours.

All of that takes time, and it's one honest reason two quotes for the same driveway can differ .

Is it worth power washing your house, and when should you do it?

Power washing and pressure washing are the same thing in most quotes. It's worth paying for when walks and steps have gone slick, before stain or paint, or before a house goes on the market (see pre-sale repairs). If none of that applies, a dirty wall can wait a season.

Timing matters more than the month on the calendar: book a dry stretch, so wood can dry out before any coating. Demand around here climbs in spring. Around Portland, about 1,000 people a month search for pressure washing over a year, and that jumps to roughly 1,600 during April and May. Spring dates go first .

How should you compare two pressure washing quotes?

Make sure both bids cover the same scope: which surfaces, roughly how big ("front walk and two-car drive" works), how many stories, and one or both sides of a fence. Then ask each bidder:

• what pressure and method they use on each surface;
• whether moving furniture and rinsing plants is included;
• how they handle the wash water;
• what their minimum is;

A lower price that skips the runoff or uses full pressure on siding usually isn't the cheaper job.