If you live in Central Florida, you have probably watched orange stains creep across your driveway, your paver pool deck, or the concrete around your A/C pad and wondered where they keep coming from. Most of the time, the culprit is iron. Florida groundwater carries it heavily, so every well-fed irrigation system in the metro paints orange arcs onto whatever the sprinklers reach. Iron-rich fertilizer overspray drifts off the lawn onto curbing, and metal patio chairs, grill legs, wheelbarrows, and exposed rebar in aging concrete leave halos that sit through every summer thunderstorm and refuse to budge. A standard pressure wash will brighten the algae around those stains and make the rest of the slab look clean, but the orange stays put once the surface dries. Rust is iron oxide, not organic growth, and the bleach-based mixes most pressure washers use are formulated for algae and mildew.
At Holliday’s Pressure Washing Services, we treat rust as its own job with its own chemistry. We use oxalic acid at the strength the staining actually needs, never maxed out by default, so we can lift the orange while keeping the concrete underneath intact.
If the rust has been bothering you for a season or two, this is the kind of work we run almost every week. Call (407) 276-1343 or request a free quote online, and we will tell you straight what we think we can lift.
The chemistry stays the same across surfaces: oxalic acid, mixed to the strength the stain calls for. What changes is how we apply it, how aggressively we agitate, and how we rinse and spot-treat afterward.
Once you submit the form on the site or call us, Tina returns the call and walks through the scope. She asks one simple question on every intake call: is it algae you are trying to get rid of, or is it rust? That single question routes your job into the right chemistry, the right equipment, and the right crew prep before anyone is dispatched.
We email a written estimate that spells out the scope, the price, and any caveats we want you to see in writing about staining that may not lift fully. Nothing on cleanup day comes as a surprise, because everything that matters is on the page you approved.
Once you approve, we lock in the date and send a confirmation. On the morning of the job, you get a text from the crew on the way with an ETA in minutes. You do not need to be home. We can run the entire job and send you photos, an online invoice, and a walkthrough by text.
When we arrive, we make contact if you are home and walk the area together so you can point out the stains that matter most to you. We hook up to your spigot for water on most residential jobs because it gives us the volume we need without draining our tank. If you would rather we bring our own water, we run from our 535-gallon onboard tank or fill up with a fire hydrant meter. On commercial sites, this is when we stage cones and our A-frame signage.
Before any chemistry hits the surface, we walk the perimeter and protect plants near the work area. We ask that pets stay indoors until everything is fully dry. Our crew wears gloves and respirators when working with cleaning chemicals, because that is what working with chemicals professionally looks like.
We surface-clean the area with our 36-inch surface cleaner to lift organic growth and loose grime, then rinse the area down so we can see exactly what the rust looks like underneath. With the stain clearly visible, we mix the oxalic acid at the lowest strength we think will work for your specific surface and severity. We do not default to maximum concentration.
We apply the oxalic acid solution to the rust-stained area and give it time to break down the iron oxide. For stubborn spots that do not lift fully on the first pass, we keep a pump-up sprayer ready with a slightly stronger mix so we can hit individual spots without re-dosing the whole driveway. We rinse the treated area down, walk the surface, and inspect what is left. We repeat the loop on any stains still hanging on until the surface is as clean as the staining will allow.
We take photos of the finished work. If you are not home, those photos go to you by text or email along with the invoice, which you can pay online. We leave a yard sign at the curb on residential jobs, and a couple of days later you will hear from Tina on the happy call to confirm everything still looks right.
We stand behind every job we run. If something is not right, we come back and make it right. That promise applies to every service we offer, including rust removal, which is why the follow-up call from Tina exists at all.
Here is what that promise looks like in practice for rust work: we tell you up front which result we think is realistic for your surface, we write that read into the estimate, and we deliver against the expectation we set. When a stain we expected to fade only fades, you knew that going in. When a stain we expected to leave a shadow lifts completely, we count that as a good day for everyone. Setting honest expectations is how we keep customer trust intact across every job we run.
Pressure washing alone cannot lift rust because rust is iron oxide, not organic buildup. The bleach-based mixes most pressure washers use are formulated for algae, mildew, and dirt. Rust needs a different chemistry, specifically oxalic acid, applied at the right strength for the staining you have.
Oxalic acid is safe for concrete and pavers when it is mixed and applied properly. We assess the staining first and use the acid only as strong as the stain requires, never maxed out by default. The whole point of that dilution discipline is to keep the surface underneath intact.
Rust removal is priced on top of the surrounding cleaning job. The driveway minimum is $200, standard concrete runs about $0.15 per square foot, and pavers cost a little more. When rust is involved, the price roughly doubles, so a $200 driveway with rust comes in around $400 and a $400 paver job with rust runs closer to $800. These are rules of thumb, not fixed figures.
Call us so we can talk through the size, surface, and severity. Most of our rust work is done as part of a broader driveway, paver, or pool deck cleaning, because that is how the staining usually presents. If a stand-alone spot treatment makes sense for your situation, we will tell you on the call.
Some rust lifts completely. Heavier, set-in staining can fade dramatically but leave a faint shadow because the iron has soaked deep into porous concrete or paver joints over years. We tell you which result we think is realistic for your surface up front, and we put that read in writing on the estimate before we accept the job.
The most common sources in Central Florida are iron-heavy well water from sprinkler systems, iron-rich lawn fertilizers, metal patio furniture sitting on pavers, and rebar bleed in aging concrete or pool decks. The Florida aquifer carries a lot of iron, which is why irrigation paints orange arcs onto whatever the sprinklers reach.
Sometimes. Hot metal can flash-dry the chemical before it has time to break down the rust, so metal pieces take a different approach than concrete or pavers. Call us about your specific piece and we will let you know whether it fits our workflow and what the work would look like.
Yes. We rinse away from the pool, not toward it, so cleaning chemistry stays on the deck where it belongs and pool water stays clear. Pool decks are one of our most common rust jobs in Central Florida.
It depends on size, surface, and severity. A typical driveway cleaning runs anywhere from 15 minutes to about an hour and a half with our equipment, and rust treatment adds time on top of that. The exact amount of added time is tied to how stubborn the stain is and how many spots need a second pass.
We can remove what is on the surface today. To keep that result, we recommend addressing the source as well (filtering the well water, replacing a leaky head, or redirecting an arc that is hitting the slab), so the work holds up between cleanings. We are happy to point out what we see on the walkaround.
If those orange stains have been sitting on your driveway, lanai, or pool deck for a season or two, this is the right time to deal with them while the staining is still on the surface. Call (407) 276-1343 or request a free quote online, and we will tell you straight what we think we can lift and put it in writing before you commit to a date.
