There are three ways to clean the siding.
Best way to clean aluminum siding for painting.
You can use a cleaner specially designed for aluminum siding but a mixture of trisodium phosphate tsp and water works just as well.
If you choose to use any chemicals complete a final rinse to remove remaining materials because residual chemicals can be damaging to your painting process.
As long as the siding is clean you won t need to use a primer unless raw metal is exposed.
Add in a few stalks of rhubarb tomatoes or lemons and boil the mixture.
There are many ways to make homemade aluminum siding cleaner from scrubbing with cream of tartar to lemons.
You need to scrape off peeling and flaking paint and then chisel out any old caulk lines and apply new ones.
Wear gloves then mix in a bucket a cleaning solution of one cup chlorine bleach one cup tsp and one gallon of water.
For any of these cleaning solutions fill a bucket with water from your garden hose.
The best way to get this siding clean is to power wash it.
You can add a cup of chlorine bleach to the mixture if your siding also has mildew on it.
It s best to use a power washer angling the spray in the direction rain would hit the house as washing from the bottom up can cause unnecessary damage to the siding.
There s still more preparation to address before painting aluminum siding.
Scrubbing with a sponge using a pressure washer or a random orbit sander.
Scrub with a sponge soak abrasive sponge in cleaning solution and scrub siding clean.