Exterior cleaning in Bournemouth
Render and painted frontages soft washed, roof moss removed and treated, shared gutters cleared and paving cleaned across Bournemouth and BH8.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Almost everything on a Bournemouth exterior wants a soft wash and a treatment rather than a pressure washer. Painted render, a concrete tiled roof and old block paving all lose their surface under a lance, and once that has happened the dirt returns faster than before.
We survey every elevation before we price it. A lot of Bournemouth housing is big Victorian and inter war villas, and a lot of those villas have been divided into flats. That gives us tall painted frontages, bay windows, valley gutters running between roof slopes, and rainwater systems shared between several households. It also means the person who rings us is often not the person who can instruct the work.
We come out, look at every elevation and every surface, tell you which of them takes pressure and which does not, and put a written price in front of you with each part on its own line. If it turns out to be a job for the freeholder or the managing agent, you will have something to send them.
The work
Bournemouth frontages, roofs and shared rainwater
Painted render and masonry frontages. The rendered and painted fronts here are what most people ring about, and the paint is the surface you are cleaning. It gets soft washed top down at low pressure with a biocide, which kills the algae and its spores rather than driving them into the coating. A lance or a turbo nozzle on a painted front strips the paint and takes the render face with it. The black streaking below a gutter joint or under a sill is water telling you where it escapes, and it returns unless the joint is dealt with too.
Who can actually instruct it. Half the dwellings here are flats or maisonettes, so on most of these addresses the outside of the building belongs to the freeholder and is managed out of the service charge rather than by the caller. In a converted villa one rainwater run often takes the whole roof and every flat under it: the blockage is at the top, the overflow marks the middle, and the leak is reported at the bottom. We clear the run rather than one length of it, check every outlet and joint, and photograph the lot so an agent or a residents' company can see what was up there.
Roofs are concrete interlocking tile on the inter war and post war stock, plain clay tile and slate on the older villas. Moss is scraped off by hand, the laps and ridge mortar cleared and bagged, and the slope treated. On a tall villa the valley between two slopes matters more than the slope itself, because a packed valley pushes water sideways under the tile and the stain turns up two floors down. The local aspect is north, so the pitch that never dries is the one growing it, and the mature pines along these roads drop needles that do not rot down and mat in a gutter.
Under three kilometres from the water, salt keeps render and paving faintly damp between showers and holds dirt on the seaward elevation. It does not change the method, but it means the treatment matters more than the wash on that side. The biocides regime the HSE administers governs what may be used and we work to the label. On a communal site the surface you are cleaning is surrounded by things belonging to somebody else, so planting is sheeted, every gully and drain covered, and solids bagged and taken away rather than sent down the pipe, which is what pollution prevention guidance asks of a working firm.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Bournemouth is BCP Council territory and cleaning a building needs no permission at all. There is no conservation area over this part of town, and the council keeps the list if you want to check, as it does for the seven entries on the national list here. On a listed address, painting, sealing or coating a wall is a change of appearance and a different question from washing it. We stick to cleaning, and we tell you if anything you have been offered elsewhere crosses that line. On a block the quote goes in per elevation so a managing agent can apportion it.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
On a converted villa the price follows the access and the ownership rather than the square metres. A ground floor flat's own patio is a hose and a lance, a three storey villa needs a reach pole or a tower to get above the bay, and a rear elevation reached only through a communal side passage has to be carried in. The work at height rules decide what goes up, and how long it has to stand is as much of the price as its height. Before comparing prices, settle who is instructing the work and which elevations are actually in it.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. In Bournemouth that date is very often a managing agent's, so tell us if a block is involved and we will work to the notice period. For a private sale or a check out, give us the day and we will say what can be finished properly by it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Find out who can actually instruct the clean
Around half the dwellings in this part of Bournemouth are flats or maisonettes, and on a flat the outside of the building is almost never yours. The walls, the roof, the gutters and usually the communal ground belong to the freeholder and are maintained out of the service charge. So if you are a leaseholder looking at a green wall or a gutter running over your window, the fastest route is not booking a cleaner.
It is finding out who manages the block and asking whether exterior cleaning is already in the maintenance schedule you are paying into. Very often it is, and it has simply not been called off. We will still come and look and put the work in writing, free, so you have something concrete to send them.
If you are the freeholder, sit on a residents' company or manage the block yourself, one thing is worth knowing before you get quotes. Where the work would cost any single leaseholder more than £250, the leaseholders have to be formally consulted first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and a cyclical cleaning contract can trip that threshold without anybody expecting it to.
That sets the timetable rather than the work, and it is far easier arranged in February for a spring clean than decided in June. We quote a block the same way we quote a house, itemised by surface, so the figures are in a form you can put in front of leaseholders.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We are less than two miles from the middle of Bournemouth, covering BH8 and the surrounding postcodes daily, along with Poole, Christchurch and the built up area between them. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Bournemouth questions we get asked
I own a flat in Winton. Can I book this myself?
Usually not on your own. Flats are 50.1% of the dwellings in this part of Bournemouth, and the roof, the gutters and the outside walls belong to the freeholder and are dealt with through the service charge. If you are one leaseholder in a converted house, get the freeholder and the others on side before anything is booked. We will price the building as a whole and set it out by flat on paper.
We are a couple of miles inland. Does salt still reach us?
It does. Winton East sits 2.9km from the water and salt carries that far on a south westerly, particularly onto the higher ground. It keeps render damp between showers so growth returns sooner than it should, and it works on the metal in a roof from the edge inwards. That is why treating matters as much as washing here, and why the fixings get a look while we are up there.
Why is the back of the house damper than the front?
The local aspect across this part of Bournemouth is north, so rear elevations on a lot of these streets see almost no direct sun. Render stays cold, algae holds on, and any gutter overflow on that side takes months to dry instead of days. We concentrate the treatment on the back and check the shaded runs first, because that is where the standing water and the blocked outlets are.
The 1930s pebbledash is patchy. Will washing make it worse?
It will show you the truth about it. Around a fifth of the housing here is between the wars, at 19.8%, and that pebbledash was thrown onto a strong backing which has cracked in places since. A wash takes off the algae and any pebble already hanging loose, so we walk it with you beforehand and mark the areas that want a repair rather than a clean.
Being this close, can you come out at short notice?
Most of the time. The yard is under two miles from here, so a blocked outlet or a gutter running down a front wall can usually be looked at inside the same week. Thomas prices the work himself rather than handing it to a salesman. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and the site visit costs nothing.
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Free site visit, every surface priced on its own line, and a written quote you can hand straight to a managing agent if that is who it is for.