To plan pressure washing around weather, sort each job by how much the weather can hurt it, put the touchy jobs on the best days, keep a catch-up block open every week, and stop for thunder without debate. A notebook and a forecast app on your phone are enough to run the method below. The rest of this post covers what to stop for, how to move a rain day, and how to measure what weather costs you.
Which weather actually stops a pressure washing job?
Thunder stops every job, and the rest depends on what you're washing. Light rain rarely hurts a concrete driveway clean, but it can rinse soft wash mix off siding or a roof before the mix has had time to work.
- Thunder or lightning: stop, every job, every time.
- Steady rain: postpone soft washing, roofs, and any job that ends in sealing or staining. Flatwork can often go ahead.
- Wind: spray and chemical drift land on cars, the neighbor's siding and flower beds. Pick your own wind limit for soft wash and roofs and write it down.
- Freezing weather: water left on walks and drives can turn to ice. Skip the job.
- Hot, direct sun: mix can dry on the surface before you rinse. Do house washes in the morning, or start on the shaded side.
How should I sort jobs when I plan pressure washing around weather?
Sort every job on the week's list into touchy or tough, then match touchy jobs to the best forecast days. Touchy jobs include soft washing a house, roofs, decks before sealing, and anything next to parked cars or a pool. Tough jobs include driveways, sidewalks, dumpster pads and storefront concrete.
- Sunday night, read the week's hourly forecast for your service area.
- Mark each job T for touchy or R for rugged in your book or calendar.
- Put touchy jobs on the calmest, driest days. Put rugged jobs early on days with afternoon storms.
- Leave one block open each week, like Friday afternoon, as the catch-up slot.
- Recheck the forecast the night before and the morning of.
Keep watching once the crew is on site. The National Weather Service lightning safety guide lists darkening skies, flashes and increasing wind as signs of a developing thunderstorm.
What do I do with my schedule on a rain day?
Make the call the evening before when you can, move the whole day in one pass, and tell every customer before the crew would have shown up. A morning call while the crew sits in the truck burns paid hours and leaves customers waiting on a driveway that never gets washed.
Move jobs in this order: visits already moved once go first, then jobs tied to a date (a listing photo shoot, a party, an HOA deadline), then everything else. If the rain clears by noon, keep the rugged jobs that afternoon and push only the touchy ones.
A rain day still has work in it: change pump oil, check hoses and nozzles, mix-check your soft wash setup, and write estimates from photos customers sent. For wording that keeps customers calm when the day moves, the same ideas in what to tell customers when rain moves their day carry over to pressure washing.
When should a pressure washing crew stop for thunder?
A pressure washing crew should stop at the first thunder, before any rain falls. The National Weather Service says there is no safe place outdoors when thunderstorms are nearby, that lightning can strike before the rain begins, and that hearing thunder means you are close enough to be struck.
Safe shelter means a fully enclosed building or a hard-topped vehicle with the windows closed. The National Weather Service says a carport, covered porch, shed, tent or gazebo is not safe shelter, and to keep away from standing water, metal objects and open ground. A crew holding a metal wand in a wet driveway fits that description, so drop the wand and get in the truck. Secure hoses and the machine only if doing so won't delay getting to shelter.
Restart no sooner than 30 minutes after the last thunder, per the National Weather Service guide, and remember the clock runs from the thunder, not from when the rain stops. Before restarting, check the surface, runoff, access and how much daylight is left.
Worked example: a stormy Tuesday for one crew
Here's a one-truck day with example prices. The forecast calls for storms possible after 1 p.m.
- 8:00 a.m. soft wash a two-story house, $375
- 10:30 a.m. driveway and front walk, $180
- 12:30 p.m. roof soft wash, $650
- 3:00 p.m. back patio, $150
The roof is the touchiest job and the slowest to get off of, so it moves to Friday's catch-up block. The patio is rugged and close to the truck, so it moves up to 12:30. The day now holds $705 of work and leaves the afternoon as a buffer.
Thunder rolls at 1:10 p.m. halfway through the patio. The crew is in the truck right away, and the earliest restart is 1:40. Thunder sounds again at 1:35, so the clock resets and the earliest restart becomes 2:05. At 2:05 the crew checks the patio and finishes by 2:45. Had the roof stayed at 12:30, the crew would have been climbing down mid-job with an unfinished roof and a return trip anyway.
How much time should I leave between visits on a storm day?
On a storm day, leave enough time between visits to stop, reach shelter, wait out the storm and recheck the job. Work it out with a simple formula:
Storm buffer = shutdown time + time to shelter + 30 minutes after last thunder + reassessment time
For a driveway job with the truck at the curb, that might be 10 + 2 + 30 + 10 = 52 minutes, so block an hour. A big house or a commercial lot farther from the truck needs more. On a dry day, the gap only needs to cover drive time plus a little slack for setup and teardown.
How do I measure what weather costs me?
Track two numbers each month: weather loss rate and average make-up days.
Weather loss rate = revenue canceled for good because of weather ÷ revenue scheduled
Average make-up days = total days between each postponed date and its finished date ÷ number of postponed visits
Example: you scheduled $14,000 in May and lost $700 of jobs that never got rebooked, a 5% loss rate. Twelve visits were postponed and waited 48 days in total, so the average make-up time was 4 days. If either number climbs, add a second catch-up block or sort jobs harder on Sunday night. Keeping customers on a plan helps too; see how to turn pressure washing customers into yearly customers.