What Happens When You Let an Uninsured Bloke Pressure Clean Your House

We've all seen them. The ute with a pressure cleaner in the back and a handwritten sign offering "cheap cleans." The Karcher Kowboy on Facebook Marketplace doing driveways for fifty bucks. The bloke who knocked on your door because he was "doing a job down the street."

The price is tempting. Half what the professionals charge, sometimes less. Cash in hand, no worries, she'll be right.

Until it isn't.

The Horror Stories Are Real

I wish I was making this stuff up. I'm not. These are things I've seen firsthand or heard from homeowners who called me to fix the mess.

Paint stripped off weatherboards because someone used way too much pressure. Render gouged and pitted, now holding water and growing mould faster than before. Timber decking splintered and furry from being blasted at the wrong angle. Colorbond fencing with the coating stripped off, now rusting.

Water forced behind wall cladding, into ceiling cavities, through window seals. Homes with moisture damage that didn't show up for months. Electrical outlets shorted out from water ingress. Mould growing inside walls because water got in and couldn't get out.

And then there's the one that still makes my jaw drop. An operator - actually a bigger named franchise, not some random Karcher Kowboy - sprayed chemical on a house with natural exposed timber cladding. Here's the thing: natural exposed timbers should never be soft washed. Ever. The chemicals don't play nice with that surface. But this operator treated it like a standard soft wash job anyway.

Then, instead of rinsing it off within minutes like you would on an appropriate surface, they left. Came back two weeks later to rinse it off.

Two. Weeks.

The entire property had been unevenly bleached. We're talking a two-storey home where every piece of timber cladding had to be replaced. The bill? $185,000.

Luckily that operator actually was insured. But imagine if they weren't. Imagine if that was the Karcher Kowboy instead of a franchise with coverage. That homeowner would have been absolutely destroyed.

When It Goes Wrong, You're On Your Own

Here's where the cheap price really costs you.

The Karcher Kowboy? No insurance. No ABN. No fixed address. When you call him to complain, his number's disconnected. When you try to track him down, he's moved on to the next suburb - or just created a new Marketplace listing under a different name.

You're left with the damage and no recourse.

Your home insurance might cover some of it - if you can prove what happened and if it falls within your policy. But good luck with that claim when you paid cash to some random and didn't get a receipt.

Even if you can track the guy down, what are you going to do? Sue someone who's got nothing? Take him to QCAT over a hundred dollar job? You'll spend more on the process than you'll ever recover.

Meanwhile, you're paying a legitimate tradie to fix the damage. Which costs more than if you'd just hired them in the first place.

What Proper Operators Actually Do

This isn't about me telling you to hire me. It's about knowing what to look for so you don't end up hiring the Karcher Kowboy.

Proper insurance - public liability at minimum. If they damage your property or someone gets hurt, there's coverage. Ask for a certificate of currency. Any legitimate operator will have one and won't be offended that you asked. The Karcher Kowboy doesn't have insurance because insurance costs money and that eats into his "cheap cash" business model.

An actual business - ABN, fixed contact details, online presence, reviews you can check. Someone who'll still be answering their phone next month. And I mean a real online presence - where you can actually see who's running the business. An actual face. An actual name. Actual photos of actual jobs they've actually done - not stock images or AI-generated vomit that could be anyone's work. The Karcher Kowboy's online presence is a Marketplace listing with a blurry photo of a driveway that may or may not be his work.

Knowledge of what they're doing - different surfaces need different pressures, different techniques, different chemicals. Someone who asks questions about your property before they start. Someone who knows that you don't use the same approach on painted weatherboard as you do on a concrete driveway. The Karcher Kowboy has one machine, one pressure setting, and one technique for everything.

Proper equipment - commercial-grade machines that can be dialled in for different jobs, not a Bunnings special running at one pressure for everything.

The Bottom Line

That cheap price isn't cheap when you factor in the risk.

You're gambling your property - one of your biggest assets - on some random being competent and careful. And if you lose that bet, you're wearing the cost.

Pay a bit more. Hire someone legit. Sleep easy knowing that if something does go wrong, you're covered.

The Karcher Kowboy might be perfectly fine. But is saving a hundred bucks worth finding out the hard way that he's not?

Want the job done properly by someone who's actually insured? Get your free online estimate or give us a call on 1800 517 402.