Nanaimo, Central Vancouver Island
Nanaimo Driveway Cleaning
A great many driveways in this city sit on a slope, because Nanaimo is built on the climb from tidewater up to Mount Benson. Grade changes two things about cleaning a slab: how it is walked on once it is wet, and where the water goes when the work starts.
Local Conditions in Nanaimo
On a Grade, Which Makes It a Safety Job
The city sits at about 28 metres on the harbour shore and Mount Benson stands 1,023 metres nine kilometres due west, so the ground between the two does nothing but climb. That is not an abstraction about the view: the headwaters of the Millstone River and the Chase River are both up on the mountain’s north-east slopes, and both of them run down across the city to the sea. Anything rinsed off a slab here is joining a landscape already busy moving water in one direction. Two things follow. Where the runoff is sent, rather than where the dirt was, decides how the job finishes — on a lot with real fall that is a decision made before starting rather than a mess chased afterwards. And a slab set at an angle with a winter of algae on it is slippery in a way a flat one never is, which is the practical argument for having it done ahead of the wet months instead of after them.
- Land climbing from sea level downtown to the Mount Benson bench, so grade is a factor on many lots
Commonly Asked
It can, and that is the right question to ask before booking anyone. Paint of that era is usually chalking on the sun-facing walls, the lap joints have opened, and pressure will both strip paint and drive water in behind the boards where you cannot see it drying. That house wants a soft wash — the cleaning solution doing the work, at a pressure closer to a garden hose than a pressure washer — with the runoff controlled, because on a pre-1960 house you have to assume there is lead in the older layers. If a quote for a heritage house downtown does not mention pressure at all, ask what pressure they intend to use.
Other Towns We Cover
Where We Work in Nanaimo
Nanaimo is the largest service area on this list and the least uniform. A job in the Old City Quarter and a job in Linley Valley are twenty minutes and a hundred and thirty years apart, so quoting here leans harder on the address than it does anywhere else on this list.
Landmarks nearby: Mount Benson · The Bastion · Departure Bay ferry terminal
Talk to Someone About Your Nanaimo Job
A straight conversation about what the work needs. Asking costs nothing either way.