Exterior cleaning in Beacon Hill

Roof cleaning starts with the tile. The houses along these roads carry concrete interlocking tile on a shallow pitch. Concrete is porous, a shallow pitch drains slowly, and water sits in the laps, so moss does not pick a patch here, it takes the whole slope.

We scrape the bulk off by hand, clear the laps and the ridge line, then treat what is left with a biocide so the spores die instead of being spread about. What we will not do is put a lance on a concrete tile: the force takes the surface off, opens the mortar under the ridge, and gives the moss a better key than it had before.

Dry dash pebbledash on a gable or an upper storey wants different handling from smooth painted render. Pebbledash is the one people get wrong. It is a stuck on surface and a jet wash strips it, so it is soft washed at low pressure with a treatment. Black streaking under a gutter joint is a leak telling you where it is, and it comes straight back if the joint is not sorted first.

Beacon Hill has heath and pine on its doorstep, and the needles that land in the gutters and valleys are a gutter clearing job, done before we wash the fascia and soffit. Block paving that has held moss in its joints for years needs more than a rinse, so we lift the growth, wash the blocks and re-sand the joints, because a drive left unsanded loses its interlock and starts to rut.

You are paying for the time each surface takes, not its size, so we do not work to a rate per square metre.

The surface. A concrete tile roof covered in moss is scraped by hand and treated with a biocide, not pressure washed, because a jet lifts tiles and forces water under them. Render is soft washed at low pressure. Block paving can take a rotary cleaner and then needs re-sanding.

Reach. A bungalow roof can often be done from a reach pole on the lawn. A two storey gable wants a tower, and a garage roof behind a fence is reached by hand. The work at height rules decide which, not our preference.

A second visit. A biocide keeps working for weeks after it goes on, and some jobs finish better with a rinse or a second treatment later. We say if yours needs one.

Where the water goes. Dirty run-off with biocide in it should go to a foul drain or be contained, not into a surface water drain or a ditch. The government's pollution prevention guidance covers this.

When comparing prices, check the method for each surface, whether a biocide treatment is included or it is a rinse only, and where the run-off will end up.

The drive out from our Boscombe base to Beacon Hill is 9.8 miles. We clean roofs, walls and drives here and in Lytchett Minster, Upton, Sturminster Marshall and the lanes between them. Dorset Council would be the authority, but a clean never needs its permission.

The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. It belongs to Thomas Hannen, who looks at every surface and gives you the price himself. A verified Checkatrade customer rated us 10 out of 10. The site visit and the written quote, itemised by surface, are free. Before you book a visit in Beacon Hill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Beacon Hill 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.