Gentle House Washing for Antigo's Older Homes

Antigo is the Langlade County seat, about 62 miles northeast of our Marshfield shop. The city sits on a plateau, and the fertile "Antigo Flats" soil drew early settlers; Antigo silt loam is now the state soil of Wisconsin. The name comes from an Ojibwe phrase meaning "summer balsam firs by the river", and Spring Brook runs through town.

One of the two oldest housing stocks we serve

Half the homes in Antigo were built before about 1954, neck and neck with Merrill for the oldest homes on our list. About a third went up in 1939 or earlier, and more than half before 1960.

If your home has painted wood siding or trim, it can discolor for reasons that have nothing to do with dirt.

Stains a wash can and cannot fix

Painted siding picks up several kinds of stain, and knowing which one you have tells you what washing will do.

• Mildew and dirt. These are what a wash is for. Our house washing removes them at low pressure.
• Chalking. As paint weathers, it releases pigment as a fine chalk. It becomes a problem when it washes down over a surface of a different color.
• Wood extractive stains. When water gets through a thin or porous paint coat, it can leave reddish-brown extractives behind. These are best washed off with a mild detergent soon after they appear.
• Rust stains from nails. Standard iron nails under paint can bleed a red-brown stain around the nail head. Screens and other metal fasteners can do the same.
• Brown stains over knots. Knots in softwoods such as pine hold resin, which can make paint peel or turn brown.

Rust stains, knot bleed and peeling paint are paint problems rather than dirt, so a wash alone will not cure them.

Antigo winters

Antigo sees about 180 nights below freezing a year and about 37 nights below zero, with about 54 inches of snow and snow on the ground about 116 days. Have the gutters cleared before all that arrives: a full gutter can push meltwater back into the shingles or behind the siding.

Painted wood is one of the surfaces high pressure can damage, which is why our house wash is low pressure. On a house this age, that is not a detail.