Pressure washing costs in Syracuse

Washing a house can count as an alteration in Syracuse. The city's preservation ordinance, reprinted in the design guidelines for the Sedgwick-Highland-James district, covers any process used to clean or treat a building's exterior that can reasonably be expected to cause discoloration, pitting or another change in the surface. It names power blasting outright, with or without additives.

That language reaches the city's four preservation districts and its individually protected sites. Two of the districts, Berkeley Park and Sedgwick-Highland-James, are residential. Exterior alterations there need a Certificate of Appropriateness through the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board, and preservation staff ask to hear from you before you apply.

The application has a cleaning box of its own. It asks what the surfaces are made of and what cleaning process you're proposing. So get your crew's method, and the name of any cleaner they plan to use, in writing before the form goes in.

The guidelines also limit when brick should be cleaned: only to halt deterioration or remove heavy soiling.

If the crew offers to seal your brick once it's clean, the guidelines answer that too. They say water-repellent coatings are generally not recommended.