Exterior cleaning in Bearwood
Roof moss, render and tile hanging, shared gutter runs, drives and parking courts across Bearwood and BH11, cleaned at the pressure the surface will actually take.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Exterior cleaning in Bearwood often starts with a green back slope. If the back of your roof is green and the front of it is clean, there is nothing wrong with the roof. That is aspect, not failure, and it is fixed with a soft wash and a treatment, not a re-cover.
We survey each elevation before we price anything, and in Bearwood that matters more than it sounds. The estate went up largely in one go, so whole streets share the same roof covering, the same render panels and the same block paving, and they age at the same rate. That is why, once one house on a street needs cleaning, its neighbours are rarely far behind.
The usual problems are the shaded roof slope, a gutter that has started running over the front door, or a drive that has gone slippery where the cars do not sit. We look at all of it, price each surface separately, and tell you where the money is best spent first. On a terrace that is often the gutters, not the roof.
The work
The surfaces Bearwood streets actually have
Roof cleaning on a shared slope. The estate is 1980s, with over a third of the stock from that decade, and the roofs are almost all concrete interlocking tile at a shallow pitch, with the terraces running as one long slope over several houses.
Moss on a slope like that is a shared problem: what grows on your two metres seeds the next two. We scrape it off, clear the laps and the ridge, bag what comes down, and treat the slope with a biocide so the spores die back instead of spreading. A pressure wash on shallow pitched concrete tile forces water up under the lap, works the ridge mortar loose and strips the face off the tile. Cleaning one house in the middle of a run and leaving the rest is honest work but short lived, and we say so before you book. Whichever slope of your roof faces away from the sun never dries, and that is the one holding the growth.
The gable panels around Bearwood are usually tile hung, or a panel of render or pebbledash set into brick. Hung tiles are only nailed, so they get a low pressure rinse and a treatment, never a lance or a turbo nozzle behind the course. Render panels and the painted masonry over the door are soft washed.
Gutters that are not only yours. With 28.9% of the stock terraced, a run of Bearwood houses often shares one gutter and one downpipe, so a blockage two doors down backs up over your fascia, and gutter clearing works best done along the whole run.
On a tight estate plot your run off is your neighbour's problem within about a metre. Planting is sheeted, the gully and any drain covered, and solids bagged and taken away rather than sent down the pipe. We use only products approved for the surface they go on and work to the label, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires, and we keep run off out of any watercourse in line with pollution prevention guidance. Most of the block paving here is original and the joints have held moss for decades, so it is lifted, washed and re-sanded, and where houses share a parking court it is worth getting the neighbours in on one visit.
How it runs
Soft washing render and lifting moss off concrete tiles
Thomas looks at every surface himself before pricing: the concrete tile roof, any render, the brick, the drive and the patio. On a terrace he works out which parts can be reached from your side and which need the neighbour's agreement, and on a block of flats who is actually instructing the work. The written quote goes surface by surface, with the method, the access, the biocide and where the water will go.
Protection goes on first. Plants by the walls are wetted and covered, moss scraped off the roof is caught and bagged rather than washed into the gutters, and the gutters are cleared once the roof is done. Paths are rinsed at the end of each day, and nothing is left half finished overnight. A cracked tile or a patch of blown render found while cleaning is photographed and priced for you, and left alone unless you want it repaired.
Bearwood is in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area and has no conservation area, so washing a wall, a roof or a drive needs nobody's consent. If your address were one of the three listed entries nearby, cleaning would still be maintenance but painting or coating would not, and the council keeps the list. Biocides are used as labelled under the biocides regime the HSE administers.
Cost
How much of the roof is yours to reach
On a terrace the price turns on what you can reach from your own side, far more than on the size of the roof.
Access. The front slope of a mid terrace can usually be worked with a pole from the pavement side, an end gable wants a tower, and the roof of a rear extension behind a narrow gate is done by hand from a ladder. The work at height rules decide which.
The surface. Concrete interlocking tiles are hand scraped and then treated with a biocide; a pressure jet can lift them and push water underneath. Render needs a low-pressure soft wash so the finish is not scoured. Block paving takes a rotary head cleaner, and the joints are re-sanded after.
A rinse or a treatment. Rinsing removes the dirt you can see. A biocide kills the roots of moss and algae, so they are slower to come back, and some surfaces need a second visit to finish.
Run-off. Water with biocide in it must be kept out of surface water drains, and pollution prevention guidance sets out where it may go.
Flats. On a block, the managing agent usually books and pays, so tell us who to quote.
When you line up quotes, check which method each surface gets, whether a biocide is included or it is only a wash, and where the dirty water will end up.
If there is a date
A letting inspection or a sale date coming up
Cleaning is never an emergency, but it is often booked against a date. Here that could be a letting inspection or a tenant's check out as much as a sale, so tell us which and when, and we will say honestly what can be done before it.
A slippery path or drive is the one real safety point, and that can go first. Phone us for anything with a deadline; the form takes longer. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should you ring and find nobody free, expect a return call once we are off the roof.
Worth knowing
Your north slope is a different job from your south one
Whichever way your Bearwood house faces, the roof slope and the wall that face north get little or no direct sun from October to March. Those surfaces never fully dry.
Moss and algae establish on them several times faster than on the sunny elevation of the same house, which is why a back roof can look as if it is failing when the front one looks new. It is the same tile, the same age and the same condition. It is simply wet for more of the year.
The practical consequence is that you should stop buying a clean for the whole house on the same interval. The sunlit elevation wants leaving alone far longer than most firms will tell you. The shaded slope wants the treatment, not just the wash, because a rinse on a surface that stays damp looks excellent for about six weeks.
It also wants the gutter above it kept clear, since an overflowing gutter keeps the wall below it wet all winter and undoes the clean from the top down. If something overhangs that side and you are able to cut it back, that will do more good than any product we can put on it.
Who you are dealing with
Roof and wall cleaning for BH11 homes
Cleaning roofs, walls and drives in Bearwood means a 5 mile trip from our Boscombe base, and we cover the Magna Road side, Merley, West Parley and Broadstone too. BCP Council is the local authority, though cleaning needs nothing from it.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Every surface is looked at and priced by Thomas Hannen, who runs it. One verified Checkatrade customer scored us 10 out of 10. You are not charged for the visit, and the quote comes in writing, surface by surface, at no cost. Before you book a visit in Bearwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Bearwood?
Most repairs in Bearwood 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 Bearwood |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Bearwood. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Bearwood, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Bearwood. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Bearwood. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Bearwood
The rear slope faces north east. Does that explain the moss?
Yes, a north east facing slope explains the moss. A slope facing that way gets low sun in winter and nothing at all across the middle of the day. They stay damp, and moss keys into the tile surface while the front slope has dried out by mid morning. We treat the shaded slope and only price the sunny one where it genuinely needs the work doing.
Our roof runs into next door's. Can ours be cleaned alone?
Yes, but it will not last as long. Terraced homes are 28.9% of Bearwood, and on a shared slope the moss on a neighbour's length reseeds yours across the line within a season or two. We need their agreement to work near the boundary anyway, so a knock before we come saves a wasted visit, and doing the whole run together costs less per house.
You are close by. Can a small job be booked on its own?
Yes. Bearwood is about five miles from our base, so a small job does not need bundling into a bigger one. A slippery path, one shaded roof slope or a single elevation can be priced and booked on its own, and we agree the day with you when you ring.
Do the 1980s concrete tiles here take a wash?
They take a controlled one. The bulk of Bearwood went up in the 1980s, 34.6% of it in that period alone, and the concrete tile of the day has a coloured face laid over a grey body. Put a lance on it and the face comes away, and the roof never looks right again. Low pressure and a biocide leave the surface where it is, and the colour with it.
What do you do about parked cars on a narrow road?
We ask you to keep the drive clear and we work off that rather than the road wherever possible, because the van carries the water and has to sit within hose reach of the house. On the tighter Bearwood closes that can mean an early start before the street fills up. If access is genuinely blocked on the day we would sooner rebook it than rush the job through.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Bearwood
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Free site visit, each surface priced on its own line, and a straight answer about which of them is actually worth doing this year.