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.
A Bransgore roof clean is nearly always a moss job rather than a dirt job, and 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.
People here ring us for one of three things. 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.
Two of those 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. Clearing is by hand into a bag off a ladder, not blown about, then rinsed through so we can watch every outlet and downpipe actually run. A valley behind a dormer or between a house and a garage fills first and is the one people never see from the ground.
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
From your call to a written price
Cleaning itself needs no planning permission and Bransgore has no conservation area of its own. What you do afterwards can: painting or sealing a rendered elevation changes its appearance, and thirteen entries on the national list sit in and around the village, where consent covers work most people would call maintenance. The Planning Portal lists the other permissions you may need that sit outside ordinary permission, and if you are unsure we will say so rather than guess. New Forest District Council is the authority for this address. The written price splits the method for each surface, the access and the disposal onto separate lines.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
Same tile, same wall, different morning, and what has grown on it decides that rather than its size. A bungalow you can walk right around, a two storey detached with a conservatory in the way, and a farm outbuilding at the end of a track are three different set ups before the water is turned on. Anything above single storey brings the work at height rules into it, and they rather than our preference say whether that is a pole, a tower or nothing. Ask which surfaces get a treatment and which only get rinsed.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. If a scaffold is coming down after roof work, or the house goes on the market on a fixed day, tell us at the start, because it changes the order we do the surfaces in. Give us the day rather than the week and we will say honestly what can be finished properly by it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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
A local firm you can check
We work across Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Sopley and the rest of BH23, and it is a short enough run from us that a site visit does not need booking a fortnight out. 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
Bransgore questions we get asked
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.
Can two storey gutters be cleared without a ladder?
The clearing can, with a camera on the pole so you see the run before and after. Getting into a valley or resetting a loose bracket cannot, and that needs a ladder or a tower footed properly. On the larger Bransgore plots there is normally room to stand one safely, which is not true on every street round here, and it 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.
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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.