Do we need a permit to have our sidewalk washed?

This page does not answer that for your address: what applies is your county's ordinance, and guessing would be worse than saying nothing. What we can point to is a Florida county stormwater programme that treats sidewalk cleaning as power washing and prohibits discharge to the drainage system that is not entirely stormwater. Your property manager or your county is the place to confirm anything local. Tell us where the drains are and where the water is meant to go.

How do I know if our walkway is permeable pavement?

Look at the joints. Permeable interlocking pavement has wide joints filled with loose stone rather than fine sand. If you are not sure, ask us to look before quoting, because the method and the scope both change: the institute's guide has washing evacuating the jointing aggregate, which then has to be replenished, and it says a wash on its own is generally not the optimal way to clean this pavement at all, because the sediment-laden water is reabsorbed into it.

Can you work before we open or after we close?

It is worth asking for. A commercial walkway has people on it all day, and running hoses across an entrance while your customers are trying to get in is not something anyone should have to put up with. It is a courtesy rather than a rule — we are not claiming a regulation requires it. Tell us your quietest window, including early mornings.

Where does the wash water end up?

That is a question about your site, so it is one to settle before the quote rather than after. Dry pickup comes first. Beyond that, tell us what disposal arrangement the property already has. We are not set up to collect and haul water off site, and you will hear that from us at the estimate rather than discover it on the day.

Commercial sidewalk cleaning

The walkway in front of a business is a public-facing surface with a rulebook attached to it. A Florida county stormwater programme defines power washing to include the cleaning of sidewalks and other impervious surfaces, and prohibits any discharge to the drainage system that is not composed entirely of stormwater. And the slab may not be a slab at all: permeable paving is built to drink the water you put on it, and washing it the ordinary way works against the thing it was installed to do.

A sidewalk wash is a discharge

The one document in this trade we can actually point to does not treat wash water as water. A Florida county stormwater programme defines power washing broadly enough to cover the cleaning of sidewalks and other impervious surfaces, names contaminated wash water directly, and prohibits any discharge to the drainage system that is not composed entirely of stormwater. It also sets an order of operations: dry cleanup and debris collection first, water second. That is written down before anyone turns a machine on. This page does not say that this particular document governs your address. It is one county's programme, we have not read yours, and inventing a permit requirement for you would be worse than useless. What it does tell you is what the work is expected to look like. The practical version on your site is simple. Tell us where the drains are and where the water is meant to go when you ask for the quote. Loose material comes off the slab before any water goes on, so that it leaves as debris rather than as a grey stream heading for a grate. If the property already has a disposal arrangement — a manager who has settled it, a connection, a landscape area someone signed off on — tell us what it is. If it has none, you hear that at the estimate rather than on the day.

The pavement that drinks the water

Permeable interlocking concrete pavement looks like a paver walkway with unusually wide joints. Those joints are not a style choice. They are filled with open-graded stone and the whole build is a drainage structure: water is meant to go through the surface instead of running across it. The Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute publishes a maintenance guide for it, and the guide is unusually precise — 1,400 to 1,800 psi, sprayed at a 30-degree angle, from 18 to 24 inches off the surface. Three numbers that only work together: getting the pressure right while holding the wand straight down and close is not following that guide, it is quoting one number out of it. Then the guide says the part that matters. Washing like that will evacuate the jointing aggregate out of the joints, and that aggregate has to be replenished afterwards. And power washing on its own is generally not the optimal way to clean this pavement at all, because the sediment-laden water is simply reabsorbed into the pavement. You have moved the dirt from the top of the joints into the middle of them. So the idea that permeable pavers just need a good pressure washing is backwards. A wash can be part of the answer, with the stone put back. It is not the whole answer, and on a surface whose entire purpose is to take water in, a method that drives dirty water in is fighting the installation. If your walkway is this, we tell you so at the estimate.

The order of the work, and the hour of it

The first tool on a commercial walkway is a broom. Leaves, grit, cigarette ends, cups and the sand that blows in off the lot all come up dry, before any water, because the moment they are wet they stop being debris and become what is in the water. That is the sequence the county guidance expects and it is also just the sequence that works: a swept slab cleans faster and rinses cleaner. Then the water, and the discipline there is boring. What it takes is a consistent standoff and overlap on every pass. Not because there is some documented striping phenomenon on poured concrete — we looked for a source for that and there is not one — but because inconsistent distance and inconsistent overlap are how a walkway ends up looking cleaned in stripes. Corners, edges and the strip tight against the building are where a machine cannot reach and where soil is heaviest. As for the hour: a commercial walkway is best worked before you open or after you close. That is not a regulation and this page does not dress it up as one. It is a courtesy to your tenants, to their customers, and to anybody who would otherwise be stepping around a hose at your entrance. Tell us your quietest window when you ask for the estimate.

Where a wash stops

Some of what you are looking at is not going to come off, and that is better heard before a quote than after one. Marks that came out of the concrete rather than landing on it are one case: the pale bloom of efflorescence is salt that migrated out of the material itself, and blotchiness from an uneven pour is a property of the slab, not soil sitting on it. Washing those is treating the wrong problem. Oil that has had years to soak in near a service door reduces; it does not vanish, and a number for how much would be invented. Surface soundness and flaking on an older walk are a different subject and belong with sidewalk cleaning; oil, grease and spills across a lot belong with parking lot cleaning; the wall behind the walkway is a pressure washing job with its own pressure limits, set by the wall. On permeable pavement the limit is more specific: after a wash the jointing stone has to be replenished, that stone is material somebody has to supply and place, and it belongs in the scope beforehand rather than in a phone call afterwards. Ask us to look at the surface in person, because in a photograph a permeable walkway and a wide-jointed decorative one look identical, and they are not the same job.

Common questions

Do we need a permit to have our sidewalk washed?: This page does not answer that for your address: what applies is your county's ordinance, and guessing would be worse than saying nothing. What we can point to is a Florida county stormwater programme that treats sidewalk cleaning as power washing and prohibits discharge to the drainage system that is not entirely stormwater. Your property manager or your county is the place to confirm anything local. Tell us where the drains are and where the water is meant to go.
How do I know if our walkway is permeable pavement?: Look at the joints. Permeable interlocking pavement has wide joints filled with loose stone rather than fine sand. If you are not sure, ask us to look before quoting, because the method and the scope both change: the institute's guide has washing evacuating the jointing aggregate, which then has to be replenished, and it says a wash on its own is generally not the optimal way to clean this pavement at all, because the sediment-laden water is reabsorbed into it.
Can you work before we open or after we close?: It is worth asking for. A commercial walkway has people on it all day, and running hoses across an entrance while your customers are trying to get in is not something anyone should have to put up with. It is a courtesy rather than a rule — we are not claiming a regulation requires it. Tell us your quietest window, including early mornings.
Where does the wash water end up?: That is a question about your site, so it is one to settle before the quote rather than after. Dry pickup comes first. Beyond that, tell us what disposal arrangement the property already has. We are not set up to collect and haul water off site, and you will hear that from us at the estimate rather than discover it on the day.

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