Exterior cleaning in Alderholt
Roof moss, green render, blocked gutters and slippery block paving across Alderholt and the SP6 villages. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Exterior cleaning in Alderholt starts with the roof, because much of the newer housing here is roofed in concrete interlocking tile, and concrete tile is the one surface a pressure lance ruins fastest. So the roof gets a scrape and a soft wash, not a jet wash, and we will tell you which of your surfaces can take pressure before we quote any of them.
Alderholt houses show the need for a clean on the roof, on the walls and underfoot. A north pitch that has gone green from the road while the other side of the same roof still looks new. A pebbledash gable, or a painted masonry porch, with a dark bloom creeping up it from the shaded corner. And a block paving drive that has turned slippery underfoot and lost the sand out of its joints, usually noticed the first wet morning somebody nearly goes over on it.
None of those are emergencies and none of them fix themselves. What we do about them is the same each time. The site visit is free: we walk the whole property, not just the one elevation you rang about, put a small test area down where the surface is doubtful, and check what is in the gutters while we are there, because a roof full of moss and a downpipe running clear rarely happen together.
Then you get a written itemised quote with the method named for each surface, so you can see what is being washed, what is being treated and what we are leaving alone.
The work
What we are actually cleaning on Alderholt houses
The estate roofs. A third of Alderholt was built between 1983 and 2008 with the peak in the 1980s, so on those houses the usual covering is concrete interlocking tile and that is where the moss is. It grows thickest at the lap, where two tiles overlap and water sits, then washes down and blocks the gutter outlet.
We take the bulk off dry by hand and by scrape, working off a roof ladder or a tower so nobody walks on the tiles, then treat what is left with a biocide so the spore dies instead of being knocked off and coming straight back. No pressure goes on a concrete tile: the colour is a thin cement face and once it is stripped the tile takes up water and greens over faster than before. Whichever pitch of your roof faces north gets no direct sun, so that is the one carrying the growth. Ridge tiles get looked at while we are up there, because moss cleared off a ridge bedded in soft mortar takes the mortar with it. That is a repair, and it gets priced as one.
Render, pebbledash and painted masonry. The older brick houses at the top of Alderholt and out towards Daggons and Cripplestyle carry sand and cement render, a good deal of it pebbledash. That is loose stone held on by the mortar behind it, so it gets a soft wash: low pressure through a wide nozzle, or none at all, with the treatment doing the work. Push a lance at dashing and you hear the stone hitting the lawn.
With pine and heath on the doorstep, the gutters and valleys here fill with needles as well as moss, so gutter clearing in Alderholt is worth booking in the same visit as the roof.
Block paving off the eighties and nineties estates is the common drive here: moss in the joints, weeds where the sand has gone, and a surface that turns slippery long before it looks dirty. That is a genuine pressure wash, followed by fresh kiln dried sand brushed back into the joints, because paving left unsanded loses its interlock and starts to rut. Slabs and Indian stone pick up black spot lichen, which wants treating and patience rather than blasting.
How it runs
Washing a roof, render or drive, and where the water goes
Thomas comes to look at what needs cleaning, what is growing on it and where the run-off will go, and then writes the price himself. Each surface gets its own line: the method, the access, any biocide treatment, and how the water and residue are dealt with. Every surface comes under that one quote.
On the concrete roof tiles of the eighties houses, moss is scraped and brushed off and a biocide applied, rather than blasted with a pressure washer that strips the surface. Render gets a soft wash, and block paving and patios get a rotary clean and fresh jointing sand if needed. Most houses in Alderholt have a drive for the van, and the gutters are cleared after a roof clean so the moss does not block them.
Plants and cars are covered, residue is collected, and what comes off leaves with us. If a cracked tile or blown render shows up, a photo and a price come to you before it is touched. Alderholt has no conservation area, so a clean is maintenance. Painting or coating a rendered wall afterwards changes the outside of the house, and the Planning Portal page on external walls shows where that line falls, with Dorset Council as the authority.
Cost
What is growing on it decides how long a clean takes
A clean cannot be priced from a floor plan. What has grown on the surface decides the day. Reach. Low bungalow walls and gutters are cleaned with poles from the ground. A two storey house needs a tower where a conservatory sits under the back wall, and a cottage on a lane with no parking means carrying the kit further. The work at height rules decide which.
What is growing. Light algae on render comes off with a soft wash and a biocide. Thick moss on a north slope has to be scraped by hand, and lichen needs a treatment that works over weeks. Oil and tyre marks on a drive are a different chemistry again.
The surface. Concrete tiles, clay tiles, painted render and block paving each need a different method and pressure. Getting that wrong damages the surface, so the method is set per surface.
The water. Wash water carrying biocide is contained or sent to a foul drain, never to a surface water gully, border or ditch.
Ask what method goes on each surface, whether a biocide treatment is included or only a rinse, and whether the gutters are cleared afterwards.
If there is a date
Cleaning against a date: a sale, a let or a scaffold
A clean is seldom a rush job, but plenty come with a deadline: the house is being photographed for sale, a tenancy check is booked, or a scaffold is about to come down that could have been used for the roof.
Mention the date when you call and Thomas will tell you honestly whether it is achievable. The one thing not to leave is moss that is already clogging gutters or pushing tiles up before the winter. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Where there is a deadline, a phone call works better than the form, and if nobody is there to answer, we call you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Why the north side of your roof looks worse than the south
Which way each face of your Alderholt house points decides more about how it looks than the age of it does. A slope or an elevation that gets no direct sun stays damp for most of the year, and moss, algae and lichen need damp far more than they need dirt. It is why one half of a roof can look fine while the other half has gone green.
The south pitch dries within an hour of the rain stopping and stays reasonably clean for years. The north pitch never really dries between October and April, so it greens over, holds water at the lap and fills the gutter below it while the sunny side of the same roof still looks fine.
What that should change for you is what you buy, not how hard somebody scrubs. Judge a quote on whether the treatment is included or whether you are only paying for a rinse, because on a shaded elevation the wash is the short lived part and the biocide is what buys you the years. Expect the north side to come back first and do not read that as a bad job.
Cut back anything overhanging that keeps the surface wet, keep the gutter under that pitch clear so it is not sitting in its own damp, and be wary of anyone offering to fix a shaded roof by turning the pressure up. On concrete tile that trades one green winter for a permanently porous surface.
Who you are dealing with
Who is cleaning your roof and walls
Exterior cleaning takes us across Alderholt, Daggons and Cripplestyle, and the rest of the SP6 villages out to Sandleheath, Fordingbridge and Cranborne. You are 12.5 miles up the road from our Boscombe base, under Dorset Council.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Its owner, Thomas Hannen, comes out to see what needs cleaning and prices it himself. A verified customer's rating on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. Nothing is charged for the visit, and the written quote itemising the work is free. Before you book a visit in Alderholt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Alderholt?
Most repairs in Alderholt need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Alderholt |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Alderholt. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Alderholt, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, Alderholt has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Alderholt. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Alderholt
Does anything here need consent before the house is washed?
A wash needs no consent. There is no conservation area in Alderholt, so washing a roof, render or drive is plain maintenance and Dorset Council has no say in it. The village does have listed buildings, the Church of St James among them, and on one of those a change of finish needs consent. That is not the case a few miles north at Cranborne.
The only thing worth sorting first is whether a shared boundary or a neighbour's drain sits under the elevation we need to work from.
Why is the shaded slope always the worst one?
On any roof the slope that faces north gets little or no direct sun from one year to the next. Moss holds water on it right through winter, lifts the tail of the tile and drops broken lumps into the gutter below. We treat that slope and leave the sunny side, because a clean on the face that already dries buys you nothing.
What happens to the moss once it comes off?
It comes down into the gutter and onto the ground, so we sheet the beds first and clear it by hand before we leave. Heath and woodland edge close to Alderholt means the gutters are already carrying pine needle and leaf litter before any dead moss joins it, so the whole lot goes into bags and onto the van rather than into a border. Nothing goes near a surface drain.
What should I look at from the garden first?
Stand at the far end of the plot and look along the ridge and the verges rather than at the middle of the roof. Green sitting in the gutter line, a sagging length of guttering, or moss standing proud on the tile tails all point the same way. On the third of Alderholt built between 1983 and 2008 the verge mortar is usually the first thing to let go, and on the older cottages the ridge is worth a look too.
Is there a wrong season for this work?
Late autumn is the worst time to book the treatment, because it needs a run of dry days to work down through the growth before rain moves it about. Frost is the other one, and we will not put a biocide on a roof that is going to freeze that night. Spring through to early September is the sensible window, and Thomas will say if the forecast means shifting your date.
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Exterior cleaning near Alderholt
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Tell us what has gone green and we will come and look at it. Free site visit, free written itemised quote, and the method named for every surface.