How to Wash Aluminum Siding, by Mr O.

Of this weekend's many home-improvement projects, the most daunting was cleaning the aluminum siding in the front of the house, to bolster what Mrs. O calls "curb appeal".

Different sources have different theories about the proper agent for removing dirt, mildew, and general nastiness from aluminum, so I gave each of them a shot. I tried bleach and water; ammonia and water; detergent and water; and bleach, detergent, and water. From the results of these four experiments, a scientist would probably infer that water is damaging to aluminum siding.

Bleach and water left the walls looking much like they did before cleaning, with perhaps a 5% decrease in grime. Ammonia and water was less effective. Detergent and water was quite effective at moving the grime around the walls, usually until it dripped down and froze as a series of gray drops. Not impressed with any of the above, I decided to wash the entire wall with the three-way combo, which continued to move the filth around, distributing the nastiness until some slats were as much as 10% cleaner than they were yesterday. I meticulously hacked away at the rest of the slats until they were no more than 20% dirtier than yesterday, brought my beer inside, and gave up.

I think of all the things I could have done in the last two hours that would have been better uses of my time than redistributing the goo on the front of this house, and it's not as depressing as you might think. After all, there's still a chance that I won't live in Framingham by the end of the summer. And that ain't not bad.

***Addendum***
After giving the bleachy concoction a half hour to dry, it's clear that I overestimated my success. On the whole, the front of the house looks at least 30% worse than it did prior to "washing".