Power Washing in China Township, Michigan

Farm Fields, River Valleys and Gravel Roads

China Township covers about 34 square miles, with Casco Township to the west, East China Township to the east, St. Clair Township above Fred W. Moore Hwy and Cottrellville Township below Marine City Hwy. It shares the 48054 ZIP code with East China Township, so a mailing address here may read China or East China. The township does not touch the St. Clair River, so its houses get no river spray. The 2020 census counted 3,509 residents, and the community profile puts 54.5% of the land in agricultural use.

The water that matters runs through two valleys. The Belle River crosses from the northwest corner to the east side, and the Pine River cuts across the northeast corner along the City of St. Clair line. Both run 5 to 25 feet below the surrounding farmland between steep banks. The master plan places many wetlands beside both rivers and near the county drains, and maps 100-year floodplain along the rivers, Beaubien Creek, the Baird Drain and the Harris Drain. A wall that looks out over that wet ground is often the last side of a house to dry, and algae grows while it stays wet.

Two more conditions sit on top of the valleys. The plan puts most remaining woodland in the western and northern halves, with the largest stands in Sections 1, 2, 11, 28 and 31, and a wall facing one of those tree lines holds dew into the late morning. Out on the mile grid, the 2004 plan lists most county local roads as gravel, with frost heave, poor drainage and high groundwater each spring. Tires throw mud in a wet spring and raise dust in dry summer weeks, and both land on lower siding and windows.

MPWS was founded in June 2022 and works out of 21366 Hall Rd on M-⁠59 in Clinton Township. Off-peak, the drive up I-⁠94 to the 26 Mile Rd exit and east on Marine City Hwy, or to exit 257 and east on Fred W. Moore Hwy, takes about 35 minutes, and the distance adds nothing to your price. You get a written, line-item quote within 24 hours. The crew carries $2M general liability plus workers' compensation, insurance certificates are available before work starts, and 177 Google reviewers rate the company 4.9 stars.

What the Township's Houses Need

The township has about 1,300 homes, and about 95% are single-family detached houses. The 1990s were the biggest building decade, with roughly a quarter of today's homes, and about 46% went up between 1990 and 2009. Those houses are now roughly 17 to 36 years old. Their gutters have caught many seasons of leaves, shaded roof slopes have had time to streak, and their driveways have taken dozens of freeze-thaw cycles every winter.

About a quarter of the homes, 305 of them, were built before 1960, and 141 date to 1939 or earlier. On a house that age, caulk joints and trim seams have moved for decades, and a pressure stream aimed at them pushes water into the wall cavity, where it can take days to dry. A detergent and a rinse near garden-hose pressure clean those seams without opening them. Paint from before 1978 is covered in the last question below.

Septic is the third factor. In the 2004 master plan, public sewer reached only part of the township, and every other home drained to an on-site system in lake-plain clay that the plan rates severe for septic fields. That clay already sits over a seasonal high water table, so a drain field has little room for a few hundred gallons of rinse water. On a septic lot the rinse is kept away from the tank and the field and out of the roadside ditch. The second question below shows where the sewer lines ran.