A soft-wash routine that clears green algae from vinyl siding without a pressure washer: identify the growth, pick a plant-safe cleaner, apply bottom-up, dwell, scrub along the laps, and rinse top-down.
Author: Home Exterior Lab
Home Exterior Lab
The Home Exterior Lab editorial team publishes practical, research-backed guides on gutters, roofing, siding, and exterior drainage. Every article is built from manufacturer specs, building codes, and university extension research, then written in plain language homeowners can act on.
Those black spots on your vinyl siding are usually one of three things: mold, mildew, or artillery fungus. Here is how to tell them apart in minutes, what actually removes each, and how to stop them coming back.
Water running behind your gutters? The usual suspects are a missing drip edge, wrong pitch, or loose hangers. Here is how to diagnose it in 15 minutes and fix it.
A fall exterior home maintenance checklist for preparing your roof, gutters, siding, windows, deck, driveway, and yard for winter: 35 tasks in priority order, a fall timing guide by climate, and DIY-versus-pro boundaries.
A downspout clog is usually small but its symptoms are loud. Learn the 7 signs of a clogged downspout, the 2-minute ground-level diagnosis that locates the blockage, how to tell an aboveground clog from an underground drain problem, and safe ways to clear it without damaging the pipe.
Twice a year is the starting point, not the rule. Use this decision table to find your gutter cleaning schedule by trees, climate, and guards — plus the seasonal calendar, guard intervals, and the 10-minute storm check.
Water pooling on a driveway means the water arrived but never found a way off. Here is how to read where the puddle sits, run two quick diagnostic tests, and pick a fix that solves the cause, from downspout extensions to channel drains.
A concrete driveway turning black is almost always growing something. Here is how to tell black algae, mold, and mildew apart from tire marks and oil, clean each one safely, and keep the dark film from coming back.
A practical, season-by-season plan for keeping a concrete driveway clean, crack-free, and sealed: what to do yourself, what to leave to a pro, and how to tell the difference.
Most green growth on decks is algae, a simple organism feeding on pollen and dirt film. Learn to tell it from mold, mildew, moss, and lichen before you clean.