The short answer
Garage doors face the street, sit at road-spray height, and get skipped in most wash routines. Steel doors want mild detergent at low pressure (never blasting seals or the top-coat), real wood wants wood chemistry, and faux-wood overlays want the gentlest touch of all — their printed films and foils don't forgive abrasion.
A Third of the Facade, Zero Percent of the Routine
On the compact ranches and bungalows across Fraser, the garage door is often the single largest surface facing the street — a third of the front elevation on many floor plans. It also lives at bumper height, catching driveway splash, road film, and salt spray all winter. And in most homeowners' wash routines it gets... nothing. The house gets washed around it; the door keeps its gray film like a signature.
Steel Doors: Easy, With Two No-Fly Zones
Most doors in the region are factory-finished steel, and they clean gladly — mild detergent, soft contact or low-pressure rinse, done. The two places pressure must never go: the perimeter and bottom seals (a torn astragal invites water, mice, and winter under the door) and the panel joints, where a driven stream flushes the lubrication out of hinges and rollers. Wash the face, respect the gaps. While you're at it, the aluminum frame and weather trim around the opening respond to the same wash.
Real Wood: A Small Exterior Door-Sized Deck
Carriage-style wood doors are maintained like fine deck boards standing on end — wood-safe chemistry, gentle rinse, and a finish schedule (stain or spar varnish) that beats the southern-exposure sun. Gray fuzz on a wood door is the same dead-fiber layer we treat on decks, and it means the finish went first. Wash gently, refinish promptly.
Faux Wood: The Finish You Cannot Renew
The fastest-growing category — steel or composite doors wearing printed woodgrain films and foils — is also the least forgiving. That woodgrain is a photograph laminated to the door; abrade it and there is no sanding it back. Faux-wood doors get the gentlest treatment on the property: diluted mild detergent, soft rinse, nothing stiffer than a microfiber touch. Manufacturers void finish warranties over pressure washing, and they mean it.
The apron finishes the picture. The concrete apron in front of the door collects the drips, salt, and tire marks of every arrival. A door washed above a stained apron is half a job — apron and driveway cleaning in the same visit is what makes the front elevation actually read "clean."
The Bottom Line
Ask for the garage door by name when booking a house wash — it's a minutes-long add-on with outsized curb-appeal return, done with the right chemistry for whichever of the three finishes you own. The biggest surface on the front of the house shouldn't be the one that never gets cleaned.
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