Exterior cleaning in Broadstone
Roofs, render, gutters, drives and patios cleaned without taking the surface off with the dirt.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On many Broadstone properties the roof can be cleaned from the ground, so there is no platform to pay for. What you are paying for is the time it takes to get sixty years of moss out of the laps of an old concrete tile without breaking it.
The calls come in three flavours. Somebody has seen the roof from the top of the road and it is more green than grey. The gutters are dripping down the front of a bay and there are pine needles hanging over the edge. Or the drive has gone dark, the joints are full of weed and the slabs by the back door are slippery every morning.
We look at all of it in one visit, tell you which surfaces are actually worth doing this year, and price them separately so you can pick. We will also say plainly when a roof is too far gone to clean, because on tiles of a certain age a clean is not always the right spend.
The work
What a Broadstone clean usually involves
Sixty-year-old concrete tile. Nearly two thirds of Broadstone went up between 1945 and 1982, a quarter of the whole place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, so most of what we clean is concrete interlocking tile that has been weathering ever since. The sand facing has long gone off the top surface, which leaves it open and rough, and moss roots into that beautifully. A clean here means working the growth out of the laps and off the face with hand tools, low pressure and a wide nozzle, then a biocide. It does not mean a lance held two inches off a tile of that age.
Ridge and hip tiles of that generation are bedded in mortar, and a lot of that mortar is now cracked, hollow or gone. Water aimed at it will finish it off, so we look at the ridge line first and photograph anything loose. If it wants rebedding or dry fixing, that is roofing work and we quote it as such rather than sliding it into a cleaning price.
Pine needles in everything. Broadstone is full of mature pine, and needles behave differently from leaves: they mat, they hold water, and they pack a gutter solid rather than floating out of it. Clearing is by hand into a bag, then every downpipe and outlet is flushed and watched, including the valley between a house and an attached garage that nobody can see from the ground. A gutter overflowing onto render is what puts the green stripe down the wall in the first place.
With 42.0% of the housing single storey, most of the walls here are one long low elevation of painted render or pebbledash, and a north-facing gable carries algae, lichen and black spot within a few years of being painted. That is soft wash work: treatment, dwell, gentle rinse. Pebbledash must not be forced, because a lance strips the aggregate off and the wall never looks right again. Before a drop of water is used the beds under the elevation are wetted and sheeted, the gully is covered and watched, and the biocide is mixed at the strength printed on the label, which is what the pollution prevention guidance and HSE guidance on biocides both come down to. Anything above single storey is work at height.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised: method for each surface, protection, access, and where the water and residue go on separate lines. Thomas Hannen comes out and prices it himself, and the visit and the written quote are free. Cleaning needs no consent. Painting or coating a wall afterwards is a different question, and although Broadstone has no conservation area of its own, the council keeps the list of the ones nearby if you want to check where the boundary runs. Four listed entries sit in the area. On a flat or a maisonette with a managing agent, get their written say so before you book anything on a communal elevation.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
No rate per square metre, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. Access sets most of it here: a bungalow with a clear path all the way round, a chalet with a dormer and a conservatory sitting under it, and a block where everything comes through one side gate, and work at height rules settle whether that is a pole or a tower. Sixty-year-old concrete tile and painted pebbledash want different pressure, and one of them wants very little. When you compare, the questions worth asking are the method per surface, whether a second visit is in the price, and where the residue ends up.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. Around here the date is usually a sale, a letting inspection, or an agent working to one on a block. We are six miles up the road, so a look before you fix it is easy, and we will say honestly whether it can be done properly by then rather than rush it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Bungalow country, and what that does to a clean
More than four in ten homes in Broadstone are bungalows, and that is not a piece of trivia, it changes the price and the method. The good part: the whole roof is reachable with a pole from the ground, so there is no scaffold or tower in the quote, and the gutters can be cleared from a ladder standing on level ground rather than off a platform.
The less good part: a bungalow puts the same floor area under roughly twice the roof of a two-storey house, so there is more tile to clean, more ridge, more hip and more verge to check, and about twice as much gutter running round it. When you compare a bungalow quote with a friend's semi in town, that is the difference you are looking at, and it is worth asking any quote to show the roof area rather than a single figure for the house.
The other thing about being low is that the roof is close to the trees and close to the ground. Low eaves sit in the shade of a boundary hedge, splash comes back up the wall off a path, and a shallow pitched garage or extension roof next to the house drains slowly and stays damp.
Those are the areas that green over first and are worth doing even in a year when the main roof can wait. If the plot is heavily shaded, a treatment matters more than the wash does, because the wash is what you can see and the treatment is what buys you the next few years.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We are in and around Broadstone, Merley, Corfe Mullen and Upton constantly, so a BH18 site visit is usually a matter of days rather than weeks. 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
Broadstone questions we get asked
Is there more roof to clean on a bungalow?
There is, and it is the thing that shapes most jobs in Broadstone. 42.0% of the dwellings here are bungalows, so the same floor area is spread over roughly twice the roof of a two storey house, with far more ridge, hip and verge for moss to sit in. The gutter run is longer too. Against that, nearly all of it is within reach of a pole or a low tower rather than scaffold.
Why has every roof in our road gone green together?
Because they were built together. 63.1% of Broadstone stock dates from 1945 to 1982, and a quarter of the whole settlement came out of the late 1950s and early 1960s at 25.0%. Roofs of one age weather at one rate, so a street reaches the tipping point within a season or two of itself. It also means the verge and ridge bedding is at the same stage, and we look at that before wetting anything.
Our road floods after heavy rain. Does washing add to it?
Not if it is planned properly. Broadstone sits in a high surface water band and the ground under most of it stays wet, so the gullies back up in a downpour and whatever you put down the road drain simply sits there. Soft washing keeps the volume down to a fraction of what a jet throws about, and we let it soak away across grass and soil well back from the highway. If the ground is already saturated we stop.
What can I see from the garden before you come?
More than most people can, because you are looking at a single storey roof from level ground. Stand well back in Broadstone and look along the ridge for missing bedding, along the verge for gaps, and into the gutter mouths for the grit that comes off tiles as they age. Green on the shaded slope is cosmetic. Moss thick enough to hold water at the tile laps is the part that actually matters.
Is there anything in Broadstone that would stop the work?
Almost nothing. There is no conservation area of its own here and only four listed entries in the settlement, so on an ordinary house a wash counts as maintenance and needs no application to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Thomas Hannen still comes out and looks before anything is priced, and the written quote is itemised, so the roof, the gutters and the drive sit on separate lines and you can drop any of them.
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Find out what your roof actually needs
We will come and look, photograph the ridge and the laps, and price each surface separately. Both the visit and the quote are free.