Heath spent 20 years in the Navy as a submariner. When he retired, he went into pressure washing. He started Texas Pressure Washing in 2019, working “out of his driveway, with one truck,” says Troy, the company’s vice president.
The washing company now runs five trucks and three trailers. Its main office is listed in Kingwood, and its headquarters facility is in Porter. Pressure washing was the first business Heath started, and Troy says it has since led to a dozen or so more. They include a parking lot striping company, painting and remodeling crews, a shop that builds rigs for other washing companies, and monthly training for people who want to start one.
“Texas Pressure Washing basically funded all of it,” Troy says.
Troy has worked with Heath since about 2020. He is in the Army Reserve and serves as vice president of all the companies. He describes the growth as a string of practical steps, each one following something customers were already doing. Customers had their parking lots washed so the lots could be restriped, so the company added striping. Homeowners had their houses washed and then wanted the windows cleaned, so it added window cleaning. People cleaned their houses before painting them, so it started painting.
The striping business, Texas Striping Pros, puts down the lines in commercial parking lots. The group also does interior and exterior painting, full remodels, concrete and asphalt, and mobile welding on staircases and railings at apartment complexes. Junk hauling came later, followed by biohazard removal. Troy says the aim is to handle whatever a commercial or multifamily property manager needs.
“We tell people, ‘We’re not a cleaning company. We’re a solutions company. We’re here to solve your problem,’” he says.
Washing still anchors the operation, and most of it is commercial. Troy puts the split at about 90 percent commercial and 10 percent residential. The crews have cleaned parking garages and NRG Stadium, and they travel nationally for jobs.
On houses, the company’s website says it favors soft washing, which uses cleaning solutions at low pressure. The site says high pressure can damage siding, while soft washing removes the algae that turns siding green. It says the same method takes black streaks, moss and lichen off roofs, and that crews can clean a building up to four stories tall from the ground. Crews keep working in rain but stop for lightning, according to the site.
Troy says homeowners regularly call about oil stains in their driveways that nobody has been able to get up. The crew treats the stain and cleans it.
He tells one story with a laugh. Two of the company’s trucks were totaled when they crashed into each other. The other three trucks stepped in and covered the work. Troy says the size of the team lets the company shift quickly when a truck breaks down, and that it has never had to tell a customer it couldn’t serve them.
The Porter headquarters is also a shop. Troy says the company sells chemicals there and builds trailers, skids, closed vans and box trucks for other commercial pressure washing companies. Some of those rigs travel a long way. Troy says the company has sent them to Hawaii and Puerto Rico and ships equipment “nationally and internationally.” The same facility hosts the monthly training sessions, where new and experienced business owners learn how to start a washing company and scale it.
The company is veteran-owned, and it hires through the military’s SkillBridge program. Troy says the program places active-duty service members who are transitioning out of the military with the company to learn a trade, for terms of two, three or six months. If the fit is good, the company hires them afterward. “We’ve hired quite a few people through the SkillBridge program,” he says.
The website promises customers will be fully satisfied or won’t have to pay. Troy says the company makes a job right if it falls short. “Everybody makes mistakes, but we’ve always made it right,” he says. He adds that the company has never had to file an insurance claim over its work.
Troy says the company has no interest in selling. It would rather grow from the inside. The striping company is run by an employee who retired from the Army as a chief warrant officer. Troy says that when an employee talks about leaving to start a business of their own, such as detailing, the company offers to help build it in-house instead.
“Well, do you want to start something here, stick with the team, and build it as a family?” he says.