Most exterior-cleaning visits need surprisingly little from the owner, and you do not have to be home for exterior-only work. But 20-30 minutes of preparation the evening before makes the difference between a crew that starts on time and one that spends the first hour moving furniture, hunting for a gate code, and dodging a sprinkler zone that fired mid-job. Here is what actually helps, and what you can skip.
The night-before checklist
Run through this list the evening before your appointment:
- Move what water shouldn’t hit. Bring in patio cushions, doormats, potted orchids, string lights, wall art, wind chimes, and small décor from the work zones. Grills and heavy planters can usually stay; just mention them so the crew works around or repositions them.
- Move vehicles out of the spray zone. For driveway pressure washing, cars need to be off the slab entirely, ideally on the street, before the crew arrives. Overspray and cleaning solutions should never land on automotive paint.
- Close every window and door. Walk the house and check latches, including the bathroom window nobody thinks about. House washing rinses every elevation, and one open slider means wet floors.
- Turn sprinklers off for the day. Suspend irrigation for the appointment window, and if your system runs on well water, mention it; rust-stained surfaces change the treatment plan. Freshly cleaned concrete hit by a well-water zone that evening can spot immediately.
- Plan for pets. Keep dogs and cats indoors, away from doors the crew will pass. Hoses across a yard plus an open gate is how pets get loose. If you have backyard chickens, koi, or a pond, flag it in advance so rinse water is managed away from it.
- Arrange access. Unlock side gates, or share the code ahead of time by phone rather than typing it into a web form. Disarm exterior alarm zones and note any cameras that alert you, so a crew on the pool deck at 8 AM is not a surprise.
- Leave a hose bib working. Exterior cleaning uses your water spigots. Check that at least one is on and not seized; two working bibs on opposite sides of the house speed things up.
- Point out the fragile stuff. Torn screens, wobbly fence panels, hairline stucco cracks, peeling paint, and loose fixtures should be named before work starts, not discovered after. Crews would far rather work around a known weak spot.
- Save parking near the work. A crew truck carries water tanks, ladders, and hose reels; a spot within a hose run of the house, roughly 100-150 feet, keeps setup fast. On narrow streets, cone off or claim the space in front of your home that morning.
Shared properties: give notice early
If you live under an HOA or in a condo, the building’s rules usually move slower than your calendar. Many South Florida associations want written notice for exterior contractors, some require a certificate on file before the truck arrives, and buildings with elevators or service entrances often book those separately. Start that conversation 1-2 weeks ahead, not the day before. For businesses, decide whether work happens before opening, and warn tenants or staff which entrances will be wet. How coordination works on association properties is covered in do you work with HOAs.
Interior window work needs interior prep
Exterior-only visits can happen while you are out, but interior glass means someone home and a clear path to every pane. Slide furniture 2-3 feet back from the glass, take fragile items off windowsills, open blinds and tie back curtains, and clear the desk that sits under the office window. A typical home’s full interior-and-exterior visit runs a few hours; the variables that stretch or shrink that are covered in how long does window cleaning take.
Weather: let the schedule breathe
From June through November, South Florida delivers an afternoon downpour more days than not, typically between 2 and 4 PM. Morning appointments dodge most of it, and a passing shower rarely cancels a job, since the surfaces are getting wet anyway. What weather does affect is sequencing: crews may reorder elevations to work ahead of a cell, and a true lightning storm pauses everything until it passes. Build a little flexibility into storm-season appointments and the day goes smoothly. Winter dry-season visits, December through February, almost never move.
During the visit
Keep people out of marked wet zones until the crew clears them; cleaning solutions and slick surfaces are the two hazards. Let kids know the yard is off-limits for the duration. If you are home, a quick walk at the start to confirm scope, and another at the end before the crew packs up, catches anything either side missed while it is still easy to fix.
What you can skip
You do not need to pre-rinse anything, buy cleaning products, trim your landscaping for the visit, or scrub the “worst spots” ahead of time; showing the crew surfaces at their real condition helps the work, not hurts it. You also do not need to guess at methods. A written estimate for pressure washing or window cleaning should spell out which areas are included and any property-specific instructions, and that document is the final word on scope. Preparation just clears the runway: access open, water on, sprinklers off, pets in, breakables out of the spray. Do that, and the crew’s whole day goes into the actual cleaning.
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