Surface Library
What this is
A plain reference for the surfaces we clean and the things that grow on them in Whatcom and Skagit County. What each material is, how it fails, what comes off and what does not, and which method a surface can actually take.
Every surface on a building fails in its own way, and most of the disappointment in this trade comes from expecting one material to behave like another. These are the ones we actually work on here.
Glass
- Insulated Glass Units — An insulated glass unit is two or three panes sealed around a spacer with a dry gas cavity between them.
Roofing
- Cedar Shake and Shingle Roof — Western red cedar roofing concentrates in the wooded south end — Chuckanut, Edgemoor, Fairhaven — and around Lake Whatcom.
- Composition Asphalt Shingle — Composition shingle covers the large majority of roofs in Whatcom and Skagit County.
- Standing Seam Metal Roof — A standing seam roof joins its panels with raised vertical seams and hides its fasteners underneath, which is why it outlasts every other residential roof type.
Siding
- Vinyl Siding — Vinyl is the most common siding in Whatcom and Skagit County on anything built since the 1970s, and the most forgiving surface to soft wash.
Soiling and deposit
- Cherry Point Industrial Fallout — West of Ferndale sits one of Washington's largest industrial areas — two operating oil refineries and the 1,600-acre former Intalco aluminium smelter, now mid-demolition.