I just moved into a house where the exterior was poorly maintained. There are cobwebs all over with other debris caught in the webs. Using a vacuum is quite tedious and a hose with water is not doing that great of a job. Any of suggestions? I thought of a pressure washer, but was concerned that it could damage the wood or push stuff into the cracks. Thanks
A smaller version of this (with the net tuft taped to a dowel) works great indoors.
HellT
The KISS principle applies here in my opinion. Use a broom, you could have been done by now if you didn't kill time by running in to your computer to post this question. Yea, you may need a ladder. Go buy one if you don't have one. Sounds like you will have future use for it.
First thing you need to do is get rid of the cobs so they won't build any more webs.
I think Home Depot has cob traps on sale this week......
;-]
The Ortho Home Defender will keep them coming back for a few months. If you don't treat the surface with something, they'll be back.
Pressure washer is fine. Turn the pressure down until you have just enough to do the job.
I can understand wanting to clean out spiderwebs occasionally, especially if they're full of debris, but in general, they're a good thing, right? Spiders eat flies, ants, mosquitoes, aphids, termites, etc, and the vast majority are harmless. Why would you want to keep spiders away long-term?
-- Jennifer
Actually, a pressure washer does a great job for things like that. You just use a wand with a wide pattern instead of a pencil pattern, and it cleans it right up. Stay three feet or so from the siding and you'll never even push much water up underneath but still get a good strong gush of air/water to work out the spidercrap and all the dirt that catches in them. I do it yearly and concentrate on the corners and edges where flies like to lay their egss. Haven't had much of a fly or wasp problem since.
HTH
Yes spiders do do all the things you mentioned, far as I know.
I think the case in point here though is esthetics. They're not talking about a few neat, fuzzy cobwebs in a corner or two. In fact, they're not even necessarily all spider webbings; some are just spore growths from things that float in the air. In the country especially the cobwebs will often cover the entire north wall of a building, especially if there is vegetation along it any higher than grass. Then it starts collecting dust, insects, dead and/or eaten, pollen, spores, anything light enough to float in the air. Especially after a humid summer as we've had here lately, first the side of the building begins to look a little dingy, then gray, and then more black than anything else by the end of the summer. My sister next door has one of the most text-book examples of it I've ever seen this year. She tried sweeping and that got rid of the fuzzies but not the black film. She tried washing but that was a huge task, too huge for her. We've found the pressure washer does the best job of cleaning and also has enough force to remove the black from the vinyl without damaging it since no soaps have been needed. Yet, anyway. I normally wash down my siding a couple of times a summer and it seems to suffice. No chemicals, soap or anything else necessary.
HTH, PopS
replying to No, Mary Schimmele wrote: That is an opinion-nor helpful!
How can you be replying to yourself?
And what is the point of saying what you did without saying what you're referring to?.
It figures.
replying to No, Gina wrote: Too bad a broom doesn’t work all that well on rough sewn cedar. You put in hours of work with a broom and it doesn’t look much better
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