How Much Does It Cost to Pressure Wash a House in Metro Vancouver?

Search this question and you will drown in US cost charts quoting per-square-foot averages in currency that is not ours, for a climate that is not ours. In Metro Vancouver, the honest answer is that a full exterior house wash usually costs between $250 and $1,000. A small single-storey home sits near the bottom, an average two-storey lands in the middle, and a large three-storey house on the North Shore reaches the top.

The range is wide for three reasons that are specific to where we live: how tall your home is, what your siding is made of, and how much moss and algae the rain has grown on it. Two homes with the same footprint can quote hundreds of dollars apart if one is a flat single-storey vinyl box in Richmond and the other is a three-storey cedar-clad house tucked into the trees in Lynn Valley.

Below we break the cost down by home size, by surface, and by the one factor no national guide mentions: the soft-wash premium that a rainforest city forces on delicate siding. If you would rather skip the math, our pressure washing team will give you a real number for your specific home. But it helps to understand what is actually driving the price before you compare quotes.

Most quotes start from a per-square-foot rate, then adjust for height and condition. In the Vancouver market, hard-surface pressure washing runs about $0.15 to $0.30 per square foot, and soft washing for delicate materials runs $0.20 to $0.40. On its own, that math undersells the biggest cost driver, which is how many storeys the crew has to reach.

Each additional storey adds roughly 20 to 30 percent to the base price. A second or third floor means extension wands, ladders, and slower, more careful work, and none of that scales neatly with floor area. That is why a compact but tall three-storey townhouse can cost more than a sprawling single-storey rancher with more square footage. When you read that a 3,000 square foot house costs $700 to $1,000, most of the gap over a 2,000 square foot home is height, not size.

Condition is the other multiplier. A home washed every year needs one straightforward pass. A home that has gone three or four wet Vancouver winters without attention has thick moss and black streaking that need pre-treatment and a second pass, which adds time and cost regardless of square footage.

Most homeowners do not wash just the siding. They bundle the driveway, deck, and sometimes the roof into one visit, which is usually cheaper than booking each separately. Here is what the individual surfaces run in the Metro Vancouver market so you can build your own estimate.

Concrete and pavers are the workhorses of a pressure wash and the most satisfying to watch, because the clean line against the grime is so sharp. Wood and composite decks need a gentler touch and the right nozzle so the pressure lifts dirt without gouging the grain. Roofs are almost always a soft-wash job, never a raw blast, because high pressure strips shingle granules and voids many warranties.

One efficient pairing worth planning for: exterior washing kicks up spray and residue that lands on your glass, so many homeowners book window cleaning for the same visit and finish with a genuinely spotless exterior instead of streaked windows over clean siding.

Here is the part national cost guides get wrong for us. In a dry climate, a house wash is mostly dust and pollen, and a quick pressure rinse handles it. In Metro Vancouver, the enemy is living: green algae, black moss, and mildew that thrive on the north and shaded faces of a home where the sun rarely dries them out. Forest-adjacent neighbourhoods feel this hardest, which is why homes in North Vancouver, West Vancouver, and the mountainside edges of Coquitlam quote higher than an identical house in a sunnier, drier pocket.

Organic growth cannot be safely blasted off delicate siding. A raw high-pressure stream might knock the surface layer away, but it damages cedar, stucco, and vinyl and leaves the roots behind to regrow within a season. The correct approach is soft washing: low pressure plus a cleaning solution that kills the moss and algae at the source. It costs a little more per square foot, but it lasts far longer, which makes it the better value in a city where the rain never really stops feeding the growth back.

This is also why the cheapest quote is often the most expensive one. A bargain hard-rinse that streaks your siding and returns green by fall means you pay twice. A proper soft-wash on your North Vancouver home or West Vancouver property removes the problem at the root and buys you a genuinely clean exterior through the wet months.

Before you budget for a summer wash, know this: you may not be allowed to do it. Under Metro Vancouver's water restrictions, pressure washing an outdoor surface purely for appearance is not permitted while summer restrictions are in effect. The plan targets discretionary water use to protect the regional drinking supply, and cosmetic surface washing is squarely in that category. The main carve-out is preparing a surface for painting, sealing, or a similar treatment, or cleaning required for genuine health and safety reasons.

These restrictions escalate through the season. In 2026, the region moved to Stage 3 on June 8, which prohibits personal pressure washers outright. That timing is not a footnote. It is exactly why exterior washing crews are booked solid in the spring and fall shoulder windows and quieter in mid-summer. News coverage of regional water restrictions has flagged the same limits on sidewalk and surface cleaning for years, so this is a durable feature of living here, not a one-off drought measure.

The practical takeaway for your budget and calendar: plan your wash for early spring or fall, book ahead because those windows fill fast, and if you are only cleaning to prep for a paint or stain job, keep documentation of that purpose. Our sibling guide on the best time to pressure wash in Vancouver maps the full month-by-month calendar around these rules.

Two homes on the same street can get very different quotes, and it is rarely arbitrary. When our crews price a job, these are the factors that move the number up or down. Understanding them helps you compare quotes fairly instead of just chasing the lowest figure.

The biggest movers are height and siding type, followed closely by how much organic growth has taken hold. Access matters more than people expect: a house set back behind landscaping, a steep lot, or a water source far from the work all add time. None of these are upsells, they are the real conditions a crew has to work around to leave your home clean and undamaged.

A DIY pressure wash looks cheap until you add it up. A machine rental for a day, plus detergent and the right nozzles, is a real cost, and the time is the bigger one. Industry estimates put a homeowner at six to eight hours for a 2,000 square foot house, versus two to four for a trained crew. For a flat, single-storey home with hardy vinyl siding and light dirt, DIY can absolutely be worth it, and a rented machine will do the job.

The math flips fast once height and delicate siding enter the picture. Ladders plus a pressure wand is how people get hurt, and the wrong PSI on cedar or stucco causes damage that dwarfs any savings. Add real moss, and a rental machine without the right cleaning solution just spreads it around. That is the point where hiring a pro who soft-washes correctly is the cheaper outcome, not the more expensive one.

If you are already planning interior work, this is also a natural moment to bundle. Booking your exterior wash alongside a house cleaning visit or lining it up with the pricing in our house cleaning cost guide lets you get the whole property, inside and out, handled in one coordinated push instead of scattered trips.

The difference between a quote that holds and one that balloons is the information behind it. Before you book, gather the details a crew needs to price your home honestly, and share them up front. It saves everyone a surprise on the day.

When you reach out to us for a pressure washing quote, the more of these you can tell us, the tighter and more reliable the number. And if you are comparing our exterior pricing against interior work, our deep cleaning cost guide uses the same transparent, local approach so you can budget the whole property with confidence.