Pressure washing in Trumbull, Connecticut.

Local conditions

Inland, wooded, and built around a river valley.

Trumbull sits inland in Fairfield County, north of Bridgeport, with the Pequonnock River running down through the middle of it toward Bridgeport Harbor. The Pequonnock River Valley is preserved open space now, rugged ground with granite outcroppings and marsh, and the town keeps more than 1,600 acres in recreation and open space, around 11 percent of its land.

The salt exposure that drives so much of the shoreline work does not reach here. What Trumbull has instead is tree cover, and a lot of it. Houses sitting near that much preserved woodland spend most of the day in shade, and shaded asphalt shingle grows algae and moss rather than simply collecting dirt.

The housing explains the rest. Trumbull was incorporated in 1725 and holds a lot of colonial and traditional architecture, much of it carefully kept, alongside newer building. Painted trim and older wood are exactly the surfaces high pressure damages, so they get soft washed instead.