Nobody can price your driveway off a web page. Here is what a real quote is built from, why two bids on the same house can be a hundred dollars apart, and where the money actually goes.
We could put a number on this page. Every company that does it knows the number is a guess, and the guess is always low, because a low number gets the phone call. Then the crew arrives, sees the actual property, and the price changes in your driveway. That is a bad afternoon for everybody.
So here is the honest version. A Clayton driveway can be twelve hundred square feet or three thousand. It can be four years old or twenty four. It can be under full sun or under a pine canopy that keeps it damp nine months a year. Those are not small differences. They are most of the job.
What we can do is show you exactly what we are looking at when we price the work, so the number you get from us, or from anyone else, stops being a mystery.
The area we actually clean, not the size of your lot. A driveway, a walkway, and a back patio are three separate measurements, and each one adds time on the surface.
A slab washed last spring rinses. A slab that has gone gray-green over six years needs a pre-treatment, dwell time, and a second pass. Same square footage, roughly double the labor.
Where the water is, how far the hose has to run, whether there is a gate we cannot fit through, how many stories, and what is parked in the way. Access is the cost nobody expects and the one that varies most.
Poured concrete, brick, pavers, stucco, and vinyl all want different pressure and different cleaners. Softer surfaces take longer because we cannot push them, and pavers add sand replacement if they are due for it.
Everything else is a version of those four. Roof pitch is access. Two stories is access. A north-facing wall under trees is growth. A three car driveway with a long apron is square footage.
Ask for these in writing. A company that will not put them in writing is telling you something.
Most of the time, the cheap bid is not cheaper. It is smaller. The three usual gaps:
Running water over algae makes it look better for about six weeks. A pre-treatment kills the growth so it stays gone for a year. Both look identical the afternoon they are finished. Only one of them still looks that way in October.
Read the surface list. Walkway, apron, porch, and patio are commonly quoted separately and just as commonly left out of the low bid.
Insurance is a real line item in a real price. A ladder through a window or a flooded crawl space is not a hypothetical, and if the company carrying no coverage causes it, the claim lands on your homeowners policy.
If a bid comes in far under everyone else, ask one question: what is the pre-treatment, and what surfaces does the price cover? The answer sorts it out in about ten seconds.
We walk the property, measure what we are cleaning, and give you a real number before anything gets wet. That number is what you pay. If we find something on the day that changes the scope, we stop and tell you, and you decide. Nothing gets added to an invoice you have not seen.
Call (919) 698-3669 or ask us the nine questions you should be asking anybody who quotes this work.
Everything above is why a real number needs a look at the property. But "we cannot say" is not useful when you are trying to work out whether this is a two hundred dollar job or a two thousand dollar one. So here is the honest middle ground: the bands most Clayton jobs land in, and what pushes a job to the top or the bottom of each.
These are ranges for typical residential work in our service area, not quotes. A property that sits outside them is not unusual, and we will tell you why before we start rather than after.
| Job | Typical range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| House wash, single story | $300 – $550 | Elevation footage, access, how long since the last wash |
| House wash, two story | $450 – $850 | Reach, steep ground, planting tight to the walls |
| Driveway and walkway | $150 – $400 | Square footage, rust or oil staining, years of growth |
| Driveway, drive and patio together | $300 – $650 | Total flatwork area, whether sealing follows |
| Gutter clearing, single story | $120 – $250 | Linear feet, how long since the last clear |
| Gutter clearing, two story | $200 – $400 | Ladder access, pitch, guards to lift and refit |
| Roof soft wash | $450 – $900 | Roof area, pitch, how heavy the streaking is |
| Deck or fence cleaning | $250 – $600 | Square footage, railings and balusters, wood or composite |
| Window cleaning, exterior only | $150 – $300 | Pane count, grids, second-story access |
| Window cleaning, inside and out | $250 – $500 | Pane count plus room-by-room access inside |
Two houses on the same street, both listed as fifteen hundred square feet, can be several hundred dollars apart on a house wash. The floor area is not what we clean. A long single-story ranch has far more wall than a compact two-story with the same floor plan, and a house on a slope with beds planted tight against the siding takes longer than one with flat lawn all round.
The other half is time since the last clean. A house washed two years ago is a maintenance visit. The same house left ten years, with north-facing growth that has had a decade to establish, may need a second pass and will price closer to the top of the band.
People search for prices near them because they assume distance is a factor. For us it mostly is not. We price by the work, not by the drive, across the towns we cover. What does change by area is the property stock: older neighborhoods with mature tree cover carry more growth than newer developments with young planting, and that shows up in the number more than the postcode does.
If a company quotes you over the phone without asking about square footage, stories, access, or how long it has been, you are being given a starting number rather than a price. Ask what it is based on.
Send photos. A picture of each elevation, the driveway from the road, and anything you are specifically worried about gets us most of the way to a real number without a visit. Add the rough age of the house and when it was last cleaned, if you know.
For anything straightforward we can price from that. For larger properties, commercial work, or anything with unusual access we will come out and measure, and there is no charge for that either way.
“One of the most professional and organized companies I have worked with. Driveway looks incredible.”
“Did a great job on our pavers and driveway. Got out sap and pollen I did not think would ever come up.”
“Long driveway with years of clay stains. It came out even end to end with no stripes anywhere.”
Aluminum chalks for a different reason than vinyl does, and the decision at the end is different too. How to test what you have, what a restoration wash actually achieves, and when paint is the honest answer.
Read the guide →HOAWhat a multifamily property actually needs cleaned, how often, and why the surfaces that generate complaints are almost never the ones in the budget.
Read the guide →BookingWhere the truck parks, whose water we use, how long it takes, whether you need to be home, and the short list of things to move, close, or unplug before we get there.
Read the guide →We fly the roofline and show you the footage on the spot. You see your own gutters, joints, and downspouts on the screen instead of taking our word for it. It costs nothing and you are not committing to the cleaning.
Free for homes and businesses across the Triangle and Johnston County. No obligation to book any work afterwards.
Call (919) 698-3669 for a free quote. No obligation.
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