Exterior cleaning in Breamore
Roofs, walls, gutters and paths cleaned at a pressure old fabric can 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 Breamore is mostly old, soft, lime bedded work, so the useful question is not how much pressure we can put on it but how little we can get away with. On old brick, flint and clay tile the answer is usually none, and a soft wash treatment instead.
What pushes a house in Breamore towards a clean? A north-facing roof slope has gone dark and velvety and the moss is dropping into the gutter. A wall that used to be warm brick now reads grey and green from the lane. Or an outbuilding roof has quietly filled its valley and started putting water down the inside of the wall.
We come out and look at the fabric before we say a word about method, because the wrong method here does damage that no clean will put back. You get a written price with each elevation and each roof slope listed on its own, and an honest note against anything we think should be left as it is.
The work
The surfaces around Breamore
Soft brick, flint and lime joints. Much of the walling here is old brick, flint panels, or brick with flint bands through it, and the mortar is lime rather than cement.
Lime is meant to be softer than what it holds together, so force strips it out of a joint in seconds and you find out the following winter. On this kind of masonry we soft wash: an approved product at the strength on the label, time to work, then the gentlest rinse that shifts it, or a brush and no water at all. Sometimes the right answer is that the lichen on a two hundred year old brick elevation is doing nothing but looking its age, and we will say so.
Old clay tile, and why lichen is not moss. The older roofs in Breamore are plain clay tile, often hand made, thin, and hung on nibs that have been there a long time. A roof clean starts and mostly ends with the moss, because it dams the laps and holds water against the tile. Lichen is stuck to the tile face and taking it off takes fired surface with it, so we lift moss out of the laps and off the ridge, treat what is left, and leave the lichen where removing it would cost you tile. Nobody walks on a roof like that: it is worked off a pole or a tower.
Thatch, and staying away from it. There is thatch in Breamore and we do not clean it. What matters is what happens next to it. No biocide is sprayed where wind can carry it onto a thatched roof, and run off is diverted away from it. If your neighbour has thatch, tell us before the day, not on it.
The working buildings around Breamore are fibre cement sheet, corrugated metal and weatherboard. Sheet roofs green over on the north slope and the growth sits around every fixing, which is where the water gets in, so they are cleaned at low pressure from a tower. Plenty of the rainwater goods here are cast iron, and clearing them is careful hand work of its own. Before any of it starts the planting under the wall is wetted and sheeted and the gully covered, because on a village street run off has nowhere to go but the border and the drain. pollution prevention guidance and HSE rules on biocide use are why that gets planned first and not mopped up afterwards.
How it runs
Cleaning old surfaces without harming them
Thomas visits first and decides on a method surface by surface. Old brick, flint, lime render, clay tiles and natural stone are soft, and a pressure washer can strip their surface. So most older surfaces get a low pressure soft wash, hand brushing, and a biocide to kill moss and lichen at the root.
Each surface gets its own method and price in the written quote, along with protection and where the water and residue go. One company answers for all of it, from the visit to the finished clean.
Plants, windows and doors are covered, and run-off is kept out of ponds and drains. Scraped moss and debris are bagged and taken away. Gutters are cleared after a roof clean. Biocide goes on strictly to its label, as the HSE rules on biocides require. If we find cracked tiles, loose pointing or blown render during the clean, they are photographed and priced before any repair.
Washing a wall needs no permission. Changing how it looks afterwards can. Breamore has sixty three listed entries, and a paint, a coating or a water repellent on one is a different question from a clean. The Planning Portal sets out consents that sit outside planning permission and what counts as a change to an external wall. Breamore is also in the Breamore Conservation Area, so ask the district council before any coating goes on.
Cost
What decides the cost of an exterior clean
The surface sets the method first. Soft old brick, flint, lime render and stone need a gentle method: low pressure, a soft brush and a biocide, with time for it to work. That is slower than blasting a modern concrete patio. On old clay tiles, moss is taken off by hand before any treatment.
What is growing. A green film comes off quickly. Thick moss and black lichen need treating and then time to die back, and some need a second visit.
Getting to it. A tower needs firm, level ground to stand on, and a narrow street, a deep flower bed or soft grass all affect where it can go. The work at height rules settle what can be worked from.
Where the water goes. Run-off must be kept out of ponds, streams and drains, especially near the river, so it may be collected or directed.
What comes after. Clearing the gutters, repointing, or a follow-up treatment are separate from the clean.
The trip. Breamore is 16.1 miles from our base, so it is worth doing several surfaces in one visit.
Ask any other quote what method each surface is getting, whether a treatment is included or only a rinse, and where the run-off is going.
If there is a date
A sale, survey or deadline coming up
If you are selling, a building survey is booked, or scaffold is due off after other work, mention it on the phone, since it decides which surfaces we do first. Roofs and walls come first, then paths and drives, so nothing drips onto a clean surface.
A biocide keeps working for weeks, so leave some time before the date. A call beats the form. Cleaning is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm; should nobody answer, you will get a call back as soon as we are able. Because Breamore is a long drive, village work is grouped, and you get a set day rather than a vague week.
The one local thing
A conservation area changes what you do after the clean
Breamore is a conservation area, and that catches people out in a way that has nothing to do with washing. The clean itself is maintenance and nobody needs to be told about it. What follows the clean is where control starts: painting a wall that was never painted, putting a sealer or a water repellent coating on brick or stone, or rendering over something that was bare.
Those are changes of appearance, and in a conservation area, or on any of the sixty or so designated entries in and around Breamore, they can need consent in their own right. It is worth ten minutes with the local planning authority's map before you commit, because the boundary does not follow the village sign and the list is longer here than most people expect.
The practical version for a homeowner is simple. Clean, then look at it for a season before deciding it needs coating. Very often a wall that looks as if it needs painting only needs the algae off.
Sealers on old solid walls are the ones to be most careful with: a coating that stops the wall breathing traps damp behind it, and on soft brick that is how faces start to spall. If you want the wall to stay clean longer, the honest lever is drainage and shade, not a film over the surface.
Who you are dealing with
Who cleans your house, and how to check
Thomas Hannen owns the business. He looks over the roof, walls and paving in person and prices the clean himself, even for a single elevation. Breamore is 16.1 miles from Boscombe, and he also works in Woodgreen, Rockbourne, Sandleheath and on both sides of the Avon in SP6.
Your council is New Forest District Council. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. A customer verified by Checkatrade scored the firm 10 out of 10. Both the visit and the itemised written quote are free. Before you book a visit in Breamore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Breamore?
Most repairs in Breamore 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 Breamore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Breamore. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Breamore Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Breamore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Breamore. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Breamore
Breamore is a conservation area. What does that mean for cleaning?
Less than people fear. The Breamore conservation area controls how the place looks, so a like for like clean is maintenance and needs nothing from the council. What it does control is change: a coating, a recolour, a different covering going on. With sixty three listed entries in the parish, the more useful question is whether your own building is listed, and that alters the method rather than the permission.
The flint and brick wall is crumbling. Can it be cleaned?
Only by hand and only carefully. Flint sits in lime, and once that lime has weathered back the flints are held by very little, so water at pressure takes them out and you have a repair on your hands instead of a clean. Around Breamore we brush growth off dry where we can and use a biocide on what remains. Where a joint is open, pointing comes first and cleaning follows.
Can you clean a barn roof as well as the house?
Yes, and out here the barn is often the bigger half of the job. Old clay tile and corrugated sheet both hold growth, and a barn roof usually has no gutter to catch what comes off, so the ground below has to be cleared and sheeted before we start. Several of the listed entries around Breamore are farm buildings, so we check whether yours is one before deciding how hard to work.
The river is at the bottom of the field. Does that matter?
It does, and it decides where we work from. The Avon runs through this parish, so nothing carrying a biocide is allowed to reach a ditch, a field drain or the river itself. We sheet the ground, bag the solids and keep treated run off going to a foul drain, and we show you exactly where that point is before a hose comes off the van.
You are sixteen miles away. Will you still quote a small job?
We will, on a booked date. Breamore is roughly sixteen miles from our base, so a smaller job gets tied in with other work up the Avon valley and you get a fixed morning for it. The visit to look and the written itemised quote are free either way, and Thomas comes out to price it himself.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Breamore
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