Can I hose off my front door?

And windows for that matter?
I try to keep the outside of the house clean, but wiping everything down takes forever and seems to come back the next day.There's a black soot-like film everywhere. I hosed everything down a few times and that works 100 times better, but I'm sure its bad for the wooden surfaces, and may get water into the wall. How bad is hosing down the front porch, and door?
Do you guys have a better way? Besides just ignoring it?

 

I take my pressure washer to both front and back porch never had an issue and i have an older house

 

I would assume any & all wooden surfaces are painted or stained..... and in good shape. It really shouldn't matter hosing them down. The surfaces are outside and exposed to rain anyway.... and the paint/stain should be the proper paint for outside exposure. You can buy cleansers at Lowes/Home Depot to spray on the surfaces first and hose off.

Try an area that's out of sight and run a TEST. It all depends on a lot of factors - the type of wood, the type of stain/pain, the age of the wood, the age of the paint/stain. etc.

I use a combination of pressure washer & cleansers on the house (alluminum & wood siding). We have T111 siding with stain. We power washed a section of it and it turned a different color (it had faded). We knew.... it was time for a new stain job. We just re-stained it this past summer.

 

Should be fine , try not to trap bulk water in any of the glazing stops in your windows or doors though , water freezing in there is a primary cause of thermo-pane failure

 

Personally I wouldn't take a hose to a entry wood door but anything else I would including windows.

 

Just hosed off my front door this morning. Follow up with a little wipe down. No big deal.

 

If it's the exterior side, why not? It gets wet during every rain storm, what's a hose going to do to it?

 

That's a damn good point right there.

 

^^ ding ding ding

 

Just use a little common sense here and you should be good with a garden hose.

 

X2. If you get water inside your house, then you now know that your door seal needs repairing in some way.

 

That is true a way to test your seals.

 

Inswing doors aren't going to keep water out when you spray them with a hose

 

I thought all doors have a rubber seal around them to keep them fairly air tight. Either on the door frame or the door itself.

 

Yep , outswing doors are bullet proof , inswing doors , not so much

 

Oh ok. I didn't know that. Both of the doors on our house are inswing doors, so I assumed they were just as good at sealing.

 

Id take oz's advice on this one he is a master craftsmen

 

The big difference is at the sill , inswings generally rely on the sweep to contact the sill in order to make a good seal , this is fairly easily defeated by water directed at it by a hose or even high wind , outswing doors close against the bottom sill allowing for a more robust connection

 

That makes perfect sense. I guess I've never really thought about it before.

 

If you need to pressure wash your exterior glass, be mindful of your spray pattern and PSI. I used to do side work for my girlfriend's uncle's power washing business and windows, especially large(r) can be shattered easier than you'd think. Avoid spraying high pressure, particularly in the middle of the window (should be obvious why), and as others have mentioned, when you hit the corners, move quickly so you're not forcing water places it shouldn't be going.

I don't power wash my front door, but I will spray it with a garden hose. Even a small pressure washer is too much pressure for an insweep door. I particularly would avoid pressure washing any stained wood front doors unless you need to and you've got the sweep down, lest you remove stain unexpectedly, or burn and chew up your door with the wrong PSI, spray pattern, distance from surface, style of sweep, etc,.

A quick and easy way to ruin a wood surface, if you're not familiar with how to do it.