Exterior cleaning in Bransgore
Roof moss, render, gutters, drives and patios, done at the pressure the surface can 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 Bransgore usually starts on the roof, and it is nearly always a moss job rather than a dirt job. On the concrete tile that covers most of the village it is done from a pole at low pressure with a treatment behind it, not by walking about up there with a jet wash.
On a Bransgore house the back pitch is usually where the trouble starts. The back pitch has gone green and thick, and lumps of moss keep ending up on the drive. The gutter runs over the front every time it rains hard and there is now a dirty stripe down the wall under it. Or the paving round the back has gone black and slippery and somebody has nearly gone over on it.
The roof and the gutter are usually the same visit. We come and look before quoting anything, on foot and off a ladder, and tell you which surfaces want washing, which want treating and left alone to work, and which are better not touched at all. What you get back is one written price with each surface on its own line, so you can take any of them off it.
The work
What actually needs cleaning on a Bransgore house
Moss on a concrete tile roof. The houses that went up either side of Ringwood Road and Burley Road in the 1970s and early 1980s are almost all concrete interlocking tile, and just over half the stock here dates from 1945 to 1982.
Concrete is porous, slightly rough, and holds water for days after the rain stops, which is the surface moss likes best. A roof clean means lifting the growth out of the laps and off the tile face, working down from the ridge, then a biocide treatment left on to kill what the scrape could not reach. Force does take moss off. It also takes the sand facing off a concrete tile and shortens the life of the covering, so we work at low pressure and let the treatment do the slow part.
Nearly a quarter of the housing is single storey, which helps twice over: the whole covering is reachable from the ground with a reach pole, and there is no platform to hire. It is also more square metres of tile per household than a two storey house, and a shallow pitch sheds water slowly, so the growth sits wetter for longer. We check the ridge as we go, because bedding mortar that has already cracked will wash out under anything aimed at it, and we would far rather point that out first than cause it.
On the forest side of the village the oak, holly and birch put more into the gutters than the roof does, and a valley behind a dormer fills first, so the Bransgore gutters are best cleared while the roof kit is up.
The later houses are render, some of the older ones pebbledash, and there is plenty of plain brickwork with a painted masonry porch or garage front. All of that is soft washed: treatment on, time to work, gentle rinse off. Green algae and black spot on a north facing wall come back if you only rinse them, because the spores stay in the surface. Block paving is washed at a pressure that suits the block, weeds and old jointing sand come out with the dirt, and it is re-sanded afterwards, which is the step that keeps the blocks locked together.
How it runs
Cleaning a roof, walls and drive without damage
Thomas comes out and looks at every surface before choosing a method. On most Bransgore houses that means concrete interlocking tiles with moss, a drive or patio with algae, and sometimes a rendered or pebbledashed panel.
Pressure washing concrete tiles strips their surface and shortens their life, so roofs get the moss scraped off by hand and a biocide applied, and render gets a low pressure soft wash. The written quote gives the method for each surface, the access and the disposal. One visit and one written quote cover it.
Bungalow roofs are reached from a tower or a roof ladder. Two storey houses need a tower. Plants, windows and doors are covered, and gutters are cleared after a roof clean so the moss does not stay in them. Moss and debris are bagged and leave with us. The biocide is used as the label says, kept off plants and out of drains, as the HSE rules on biocides expect. Cracked tiles or blown render found during the clean are photographed and noted with a price, and a clean never turns into a repair without your say.
Cleaning needs no planning permission, and Bransgore has no conservation area. Painting or sealing a wall afterwards changes its look, and on a listed building that needs consent, as other permissions you may need explains. The council for Bransgore is New Forest District Council.
Cost
What sets the price of an exterior clean
What is growing and where. A light green film on a patio comes off quickly. Thick moss on a north facing roof slope has to be scraped by hand, tile by tile, before any biocide goes on. Black lichen on render needs treating and time to die back, not blasting.
The surface. Concrete tiles, block paving, render, pebbledash and older clay tiles each need a different method. High pressure on the wrong surface does damage: it strips the face off concrete tiles, blows the joint sand out of block paving, and cuts into soft render. Choosing the method is part of the price.
Getting to it. A bungalow roof is low but covers the whole house. Anything at two storeys is worked from a tower, chosen under the HSE guidance on roof work. Conservatories below a roof slope need protecting.
What happens after. Resanding block paving, sealing a patio, clearing the gutters of moss, or treating the roof again the following year are separate from the clean itself.
Run-off. Water and debris have to go somewhere, and not into a pond or across a neighbour's drive.
Ask any other quote what method goes on each surface, whether a biocide is included or only a rinse, and whether the gutters are cleared afterwards.
If there is a date
A sale, a survey or scaffold coming down
If your house is going on the market, a survey is booked, or scaffold is about to come down after other work, say so when you ring, because it changes the order the surfaces are done in.
Roofs and walls come first, then drives and patios, so dirt does not land on a clean surface. A biocide treatment keeps working for weeks after it goes on, so allow time. When there is a date involved, call rather than using the form. Cleaning is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and if nobody answers, we phone you back as soon as possible. We will tell you plainly what can be done properly in time.
The one local thing
Trees, and where the water goes afterwards
Bransgore sits on the edge of the forest and heath, and that is the single thing that changes the job here. Under oak, holly and birch a roof greens over again faster than the same roof would on an open plot, the gutters fill twice as often, and a valley can pack solid in one autumn. It does not mean you need cleaning twice as often.
It means the sensible pattern is a proper clean and treatment once, then a gutter clear on a routine, which costs a fraction of the wall repair that follows an overflowing gutter left for three winters. If your plot is open and south-facing, we will tell you the interval is longer, because it is.
The other half of it is where everything goes once it is off. Ditches here run out to the heath and to the Avon catchment, so run-off is not something to be casual about. Beds and planting near the wall are wetted and sheeted before we start, gullies and drains are checked so nothing backs up into them, and biocide is used at the strength on the label and nowhere near an open ditch.
Both the pollution prevention guidance and the HSE biocide rules govern that, and we work to them because it is a residue you are letting into your own garden and your own drain.
Who you are dealing with
Who cleans your roof and why you can check
Thomas Hannen owns the business, and he comes to look at your roof, walls and drive before he prices the clean. Getting to Bransgore from Boscombe is a 5.6 mile run, and cleaning jobs are priced across the village and the BH23 roads around it, Thorney Hill and Sopley included.
The council here is New Forest District Council. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under number 15471719. A verified Checkatrade customer scored it 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit, and the quote, written out surface by surface, is free. Before you book a visit in Bransgore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Bransgore?
Most repairs in Bransgore 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 Bransgore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Bransgore. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Bransgore, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Bransgore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Bransgore. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Bransgore
What does the survey actually look at before a wash?
The state of the covering, not simply the dirt sitting on it. Detached houses are 41.3% of Bransgore, often with large hipped roofs, so Thomas checks the hip and ridge bedding, the verges, the valley linings and whether the gutters are running before a figure is written. Where a tile is already cracked, water finds it the instant the surface is wet, and a ladder is a better place to find that than your ceiling.
Why does moss grow so heavily on this village's roofs?
Shelter and trees. 51.4% of Bransgore was built between 1945 and 1982, and those estates sit in among mature planting rather than out in the open. Shelter stops a roof drying after rain, the trees keep dropping the litter that moss roots into, and the two together do far more than the age of the tile ever manages. Cutting back an overhang helps as much as any treatment does.
Does a two storey roof need scaffold to clean?
Rarely: a pole reaches the lower slopes and a tower footed properly does the rest, with the moss scraped and the treatment sprayed from there. On the larger Bransgore plots there is normally room to stand one safely, which is not true on every street round here, and that keeps the whole job to a single visit.
There are old cottages here. Does that change your approach?
On the older ones it does. Bransgore has thirteen listed entries and a run of pre 1919 cottages beyond those, 18.2% of the stock, and soft brick, lime mortar and old clay tile all want low pressure and patience rather than a lance. On the 1970s houses along the same road we can work harder and move quicker. It is the fabric that decides the method, never the postcode.
Does the work stop if it rains on the day?
The washing carries on, the treatment does not. A biocide put on ahead of rain is diluted and washed off before it has done anything at all, so we watch the forecast and move that part instead of wasting the visit. Gutter clearing and roof washing around Bransgore go ahead in most weather. Wind is the bigger stopper, because it drifts spray onto the plots either side.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Bransgore
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Get a written price for the clean
Tell us which surfaces are bothering you and we will come and look. The visit and the itemised quote are both free.