Ask three companies to quote the same driveway and you can get three different numbers, all of them honest. This post opens up the price and shows the five layers inside it, so you can see which layer explains the gap.
In This Article
The scope: what is actually being cleaned
The biggest gap usually starts before anyone mentions equipment. One company prices the driveway alone. Another includes the front walk, the steps and the garage apron. One measures the area, and another estimates it from a photo. One cleans a fence on a single side.
If the lists differ, the totals differ, and neither number is wrong. Condition matters too. A driveway with oil, moss and rust takes more time than one with a light coat of dust, and a careful estimator asks about it. The first thing to compare is the written scope on each quote, surface by surface.
The method behind the price
Two crews can arrive at the same driveway with different plans. One makes a single quick pass with a hand wand. Another pre-treats stains, uses a surface cleaner on the flat areas, cleans the edges by hand and rinses twice. Both are "pressure washing", and the second takes longer and costs more.
Neither approach is automatically right. Sound, lightly soiled concrete may need nothing more than the first. But if you have stains, growth or delicate materials, ask what the crew plans to do about them. For siding, the honest answer may be a low-pressure wash, which is a different method with its own price.
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What the business has to carry
Part of every price pays for being a real, insured business, and much of that cost is invisible to the customer:
- Insurance in case something is damaged.
- Workplace coverage for crew members.
- Training. Ontario's Working at Heights program exists for workers, not as a homeowner requirement, but it shows how seriously a trade treats falls.
- Trucks, machines, fuel, water and cleaning products.
- The unbilled time spent on quoting, booking and follow-up.
A quote that ignores all of this can be low for a reason. D&D Home Services, for example, carries $2 million in general liability insurance, and its crew members are Working at Heights certified. Whoever you hire, ask to see the paperwork rather than take a promise.
Cleanup, drainage and care around the house
Protecting plants, covering fixtures, sweeping up debris and keeping detergent water out of street drains all take time. So does moving the rinse so it does not run onto a neighbour's lawn. A crew that does these things leaves a different site behind, and it is fair for that time to sit inside the price. Ask how wash water is handled, and listen for a specific answer. Time on site is the common thread here: more protection and more careful passes mean more crew hours, and crew hours are a large part of any cleaning quote.
What the quote leaves out
A short quote is not always a cheap one. Look for what it does not say:
- Whether HST is included.
- Whether there is a minimum charge or an extra charge for access, stairs or a second visit.
- Whether sealing, staining, rust removal or repairs are part of it.
- What happens if rain interrupts the work, and who decides.
Making three quotes comparable
Picture three quotes for the same front of a house. Quote A covers the driveway only, with a hand wand and no pre-treatment. Quote B covers the driveway, walk and steps, with a surface cleaner and an oil pre-treatment. Quote C matches B and adds refilling the interlock joints. B and C are not dearer versions of A. They are bigger jobs, and lining them up by surface shows it at a glance.
- Give every company the same list of surfaces and the same photos.
- Ask each one to show the price by surface.
- Ask about method, insurance, exclusions and wash-water handling in the same words each time.
- Phone the highest and the lowest and ask what explains the gap. The answers are usually revealing.
D&D publishes pressure washing from $350 for typical Kitchener-Waterloo homes, with the final quote in writing before work begins. Details are on the pricing page and the pressure washing service page. For a fuller checklist, see how to choose a pressure washing company.
Key Takeaways
- Quotes differ first on scope: which surfaces, how they were measured and what condition they are in.
- A single quick wand pass and a pre-treat, surface-cleaner and hand-edged job are both called pressure washing but are different amounts of work.
- Insurance, crew coverage, training, equipment and cleanup all sit inside a fair price, so a very low quote deserves questions.
- Give every company the same list and ask for the price by surface before comparing totals.
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