Power Washing in New Baltimore, Michigan

Anchor Bay Sets the Cleaning Calendar

Anchor Bay forms the entire south edge of New Baltimore, and nearly a third of the city's 6.73 square miles is water. That much open water changes one number on every exterior in town: the hours a day a wall stays wet. Bay air gives up heavier dew and holds it later into the morning, so siding here is still damp when a wall a few miles inland has dried. Algae and mildew grow only while a surface is wet, which is why north elevations here green up on a shorter clock.

June brings the other half of it. The fish-fly hatch comes off the water and settles on bay-facing siding, glass and porch ceilings, and it is so much a part of life here that the city throws the Bay-Rama Fishfly Festival for five days downtown every June, parade down Green St and fireworks over the bay. What the hatch leaves behind is organic residue, and organic residue feeds the growth that follows it. Wash it off in July and the wall starts over.

The city grew in two pushes, and you can read both from the curb. The grid between M-29 and Anchor Bay goes back to the 1867 village: wood-sided and brick homes on small lots under trees at full height, many of them re-sided in vinyl or aluminum decades after they were built. North of there, the subdivisions that filled in during the 2000s took the population from 7,405 in 2000 to 12,084 in 2010, and their vinyl and brick-front colonials and ranches stand in open sun with planted trees still coming in.

Traffic writes a third pattern. M-29 runs through town as Main Street, I-94 sits about 4 miles west, and 23 Mile Rd carries the east-west traffic toward Chesterfield Township, so houses and storefronts on those frontages pick up a gray film of brake dust and road grit that a hose only spreads. Each service below is written for one of these conditions. Starting prices are published, travel fees are zero, and an itemized quote comes back within 24 hours.

The Grid by the Water, the Subdivisions Above It

Downtown blocks carry the oldest exteriors in the city and the most careful work. Original brick and mortar take a mild solution and rinse-level pressure. Wood siding that has been painted and repainted since the early 1900s gets tested in a corner before anything goes on a full elevation. The aluminum and vinyl added over original siding in later decades brings its own problem: aluminum of that age chalks to a dull powder, and washing it without a pre-treatment drags the powder into streaks instead of lifting it.

Those same blocks sit a few streets from open water. South and east winds push spray inland onto the shore streets, and the mature canopy over the grid keeps north and east walls shaded until late morning. Shade, spray and dew together hand algae a growing season that runs from April into October. On these houses we plan on a shorter cycle than an inland lot needs, and one shaded wall can be refreshed between full washes.

The north-side subdivisions are a single generation old and wear different materials: vinyl with brick fronts from the 2000s, and vinyl with stone accents on the newest builds. Open sun dries those walls faster, so the green shows up first on the north elevation and in the shadow the garage throws. The flat lake plain under them drains slowly toward the bay, which keeps driveways, walks and the bottom course of siding damp after every rain. Concrete there is young enough that cleaning and protecting it still pays.