When to Wash Your Jacksonville Home, and When to Wait
Updated August 2026 · Jacksonville, FL
The two best windows to wash a house in Jacksonville are February through April and October through November. Spring gets you clean after the oak and pine pollen has finished falling and before the summer storms start; fall gets you clean after the rainy season has ended, when algae is at its most visible and growth has slowed enough that the work lasts.
If you search this question you will find confident answers that contradict each other — spring, or fall, or October through April, or mid-November. Most of that advice was written for a different climate. The Carolinas, the mid-Atlantic, and the Gulf side of Florida all run different rain and pollen calendars than Northeast Florida does.
Jacksonville runs on its own calendar: heavy pollen in late winter, a real rainy season from June through September, and hurricane season through the end of November. Below is what that means month by month, surface by surface, with real prices.
The month-by-month version
There is no month in Jacksonville when exterior cleaning is impossible. There are months when it is a poor use of money, because what you just paid to remove comes back faster than it should.
| Window | What to schedule | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| February – April | House washing, driveways, pre-HOA-inspection cleanup | Pollen has peaked and settled; still ahead of the summer storm pattern |
| April – May | Pool decks, screen enclosures, fences and decks | Pool season is opening and the daily afternoon storms have not started |
| June – September | Spot work, pre-sale prep, and genuine problems only | Peak heat, peak humidity, near-daily storms; growth returns fastest now |
| October – November | Roof soft washing, full house washing, paver work | Rainy season is over, algae is at its most visible, storm debris is down |
| December – February | Driveways, commercial flatwork, pre-listing cleanups | Cool and dry, and the longest stretch before anything regrows |
Timing by surface, because they are not the same job
A roof and a driveway have almost nothing in common except that both get cleaned with water. Treating them as one appointment is how people end up washing at the wrong time of year.
Roofs are the clearest case. Those black streaks on a shingle roof are Gloeocapsa magma, an algae that feeds on the limestone filler in asphalt shingles and spreads fastest through the rainy season. Treating a roof in October or November, after the rain has stopped, means killing growth at its peak and buying the longest possible quiet period before it comes back. It is also soft washing rather than pressure — chemistry at low pressure, because high PSI on asphalt shingles strips granules and can void a shingle warranty.
Siding tolerates a wider timing window than a roof does. North-facing walls and anything shaded by a live oak canopy — routine in Mandarin and Ortega — hold moisture and green up first. Those elevations are the ones to look at when deciding whether it is time.
Concrete is the opposite of a roof: it can be cleaned in the dead of a Jacksonville winter without a problem, and December through February is the quietest and often the easiest time to book it. Pool decks are the exception among flatwork, since the useful deadline is spring, before the deck gets used.
- Roof soft wash: October or November, after the rainy season ends
- House washing: February to April, or October to November
- Driveways and walkways: any cool dry stretch, December to February is easiest to schedule
- Pool decks and screen enclosures: April or May, before the swim season
- Fences and wood decks: spring, so sealing can follow while humidity is lower
If your HOA is the reason you are asking
A lot of Jacksonville-area washing gets scheduled by an HOA letter, not by the season. Many Northeast Florida communities run their annual exterior inspections in spring, which is why February and March book up with driveway and house washing in the newer HOA neighborhoods.
This shows up hardest in Nocatee. Communities like Del Webb Ponte Vedra and Crosswater Village hold tight exterior standards, and new construction concrete picks up stains quickly, so a driveway that looked fine at closing can be the thing that gets flagged. In Ponte Vedra Beach, Sawgrass Players Club and the gated Marsh Landing communities put paver drives and brick entries under the same scrutiny.
If a violation letter is already in hand, the season stops mattering — the cure window printed on the letter, commonly 30 to 60 days, is the deadline to work to. If no letter has arrived, cleaning in February or early March puts you ahead of the inspection rather than reacting to it.
What each job actually costs
Timing changes availability more than it changes price. These are the working ranges in Jacksonville. A flat written price before any work starts is the standard to hold out for.
| Job | Typical range | Best window |
|---|---|---|
| House washing, single-story | $250 – $400 | Feb–Apr or Oct–Nov |
| House washing, two-story | $375 – $600 | Feb–Apr or Oct–Nov |
| Roof soft wash, 1,500–2,500 sq ft | $350 – $750 | Oct–Nov |
| Roof soft wash, larger, steeper, or tile | $750 – $1,200 | Oct–Nov |
| Driveway, single-car | $100 – $175 | Dec–Feb |
| Driveway, double-wide or long run | $175 – $350 | Dec–Feb |
| Pool deck, residential | $175 – $350 | Apr–May |
| Pool deck, travertine or larger areas | $300 – $475 | Apr–May |
| Fence and deck combo | $250 – $450 | Feb–Apr |
When not to wash
A few timing mistakes cost real money, usually because the work has to be repeated.
- Within a day of forecast rain, on flatwork — concrete needs a dry stretch after cleaning or it dries unevenly and spots
- In the middle of pollen season, if the goal is listing photos or an event; late February through March will re-coat within days
- Immediately before a named storm, when debris and runoff will undo the work
- On a roof in the middle of a July afternoon, when cleaning solution dries before it can do anything
- On a schedule someone else set — if the last wash still looks clean, the interval is working and there is nothing to buy