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.
Last updated
Exterior cleaning in Broadstone is often done from the ground, because on many properties a pole reaches the whole roof and 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.
Broadstone homes get to the point of needing a clean in a few recognisable ways. 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 is the first surface to look at. 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 roofs here are 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, quoted as such and never slid into a cleaning price.
Pine needles in everything. Broadstone is full of mature pine, and needles mat and pack a gutter solid. Get the gutters in Broadstone cleared first and the render below stays clean for longer. 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 in Broadstone 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
Washing roofs, walls and drives on Broadstone houses
Thomas Hannen comes out and looks at every surface before he prices it: the concrete roof tiles, the render or pebbledash, the fascias and gutters, and the drive. On a bungalow most of it can be reached from the ground or a short ladder, which keeps the job simpler.
The quote lists the method for each surface, the protection, the access, and where the water and residue go. The work then runs surface by surface. Moss is scraped off roof tiles by hand, never blasted. Render and pebbledash get a low pressure soft wash with a biocide, used under the HSE rules on biocides. Plants and windows are covered, and debris is bagged and leaves with us. A cracked tile spotted on the way round is photographed and priced for you, never just replaced.
Cleaning needs no consent. Painting or coating a wall afterwards can, so inside Ridgeway and Broadstone Park or the Tudor Road and Golf Links Road area, check with the council first. On a flat with a managing agent, get their written go ahead before you book anything on a communal elevation.
Cost
What is growing on it sets the price of a clean
We do not charge a flat rate per square metre. The same square metre can take minutes or an hour, depending on what is growing on it.
What is on it. Green algae on render lifts with a soft wash and a biocide. Thick moss on older concrete tiles has to be scraped by hand, bagged and taken down. Black lichen on a north wall takes treatment and time to die back, and sometimes a second visit.
Getting to it. A bungalow with a clear path all round is quick. A chalet with a conservatory under the dormer, or a low block where everything goes through one side gate, is slower. The work at height rules decide whether a pole will do or a tower is needed.
The surface. Old concrete tiles and painted pebbledash both want very low pressure, or you strip the surface along with the dirt. Block paving needs the joints re-sanded after a wash.
Where the water goes. Run-off with biocide in it must not go into a road gully.
Ask any other quote what method they use on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the residue ends up.
If there is a date
A sale, a letting inspection or an agent's deadline
Exterior cleaning is rarely an emergency, but it often has a date: a sale, a letting inspection, or a managing agent working to one on a block. Tell us the date when you ring.
Thomas will look before you commit and say honestly whether it can be done properly by then, including whether a biocide will have had time to work. Rushed washing with too much pressure does more harm than good. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If the date is close, phone us rather than using the form, and if we miss it we will return your call as soon as we can.
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 reached from a ladder on level ground.
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
Checking us out before you book a clean
We clean roofs, walls and drives in Broadstone, Merley, Corfe Mullen and Upton, 7.3 miles from Boscombe, where BCP Council is the local authority. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, is run by its owner Thomas Hannen, who prices the job himself. Before you book a visit in Broadstone, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
One verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade, and you can read it there. We do not charge for the visit, nor for the written quote with its separate lines.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Broadstone?
Most repairs in Broadstone 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 Broadstone |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Broadstone. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Ridgeway and Broadstone Park Conservation Area and Tudor Road and Golf Links Road Conservation Area. They cover parts of Broadstone, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Broadstone. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Broadstone. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Broadstone
Is there more roof to clean on a bungalow?
A bungalow does have more roof to clean, and it is the thing that shapes most cleans 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: on an ordinary house a wash counts as maintenance and needs no application to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Broadstone does have two conservation areas near its centre, Ridgeway and Broadstone Park, and Tudor Road and Golf Links Road, and there are four listed entries in the settlement, so painting or coating a wall afterwards is worth checking there. 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.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Broadstone
Nearby places we also cover for exterior cleaning, with straight-line distances from Broadstone, and the other trades we offer in Broadstone itself.
Exterior cleaning nearby
Our other trades in Broadstone
Exterior cleaning guides
Soft washing vs pressure washing: safe for a roof? How to clean a patio without damaging it Moss on a roof: does it need removing?Everything we do in Broadstone Exterior cleaning, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.