Exterior cleaning in Brockenhurst
Moss, algae and lichen taken off roofs, walls and paving without damaging what is under them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two questions decide a Brockenhurst clean before method does: what the roof or wall is made of, and where the water is allowed to go when it comes off. With the river running through the middle of the village, the second one is not a formality.
Most people ring because something has gone green rather than dirty. A slate or clay slope that faces the trees is dark and furred over. A painted render cottage front is streaked under the gutter. A gravel or paved area by the back door has turned slippery and is staying that way all winter.
The survey looks at the fabric and at the drainage in the same visit, because they decide each other, and then you get a written price with the roof, each elevation and each hard area listed on its own line. If a surface is better left alone, that is on the quote too, with the reason.
The work
What we clean in the village, and how
Old clay tile and slate. A good part of Brockenhurst is older than the concrete tile: nearly a quarter of it predates 1919 and the largest single group of the village went up before 1900. The covering is plain clay tile, some slate, and a mix of the two where roofs have been patched over the years. Both hold lichen on the face and moss in the laps, and the two want different treatment. Moss is lifted out of the laps by hand, because that is what dams the water and pushes it sideways under the tile. Lichen on a soft old face is treated rather than scraped, because taking it off takes the weathered surface with it. The ridge gets looked at first: bedding mortar on a roof this old is usually cracked already, and a jet wash aimed at it finishes the job. Nothing is walked on and nothing is pressure washed.
Painted render, pebbledash and brickwork. The village street is largely render and painted masonry, with pebbledash on the later houses and brickwork on the Victorian ones, some of it solid wall that has to breathe. Black spot on a shaded elevation is the usual complaint, and the south west is the exposed face here, so driven rain works at the edges and openings rather than the middle of a wall. A soft wash is the only method for that: an approved biocide at label strength, dwell time, and a rinse at a pressure that will not drive water into the wall or take the paint film off in sheets. Where a coat of masonry paint is already failing, cleaning it finds every loose patch, and we say so before rather than hand you a patchy wall afterwards.
Nearly half the village is detached, and the houses on the wooded plots off the main roads collect more than their share: needles and leaf in the valleys, growth on the north pitch, and gutters that have not been dry in months. That is a scrape, a treatment and a full gutter and downpipe clear in one visit, because the access is the expensive part and there is no sense paying for it twice. Valleys between a main roof and a rear addition are the ones that fill unnoticed and put water into a bedroom ceiling in November.
Stone paving, brick paths, block paving and concrete all green over here because the ground rarely dries out. The Lymington River runs within yards of some of these gardens and parts of the village sit in flood zone 2 and 3, so a hard standing can stay wet for weeks. Paving is cleaned at a pressure that suits it, joints are raked of weed, and block paving is re-sanded afterwards. Steps and any path on a slope get done first, because that is where somebody actually falls. Anything above single storey is work at height and the HSE rules, not our preference, decide whether that is a pole, a tower or a job we will not take on.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
You get the method for each surface, the protection, the access and the disposal on separate lines, not a figure on the back of a card. Thomas Hannen prices the job himself and the visit costs nothing. Washing needs nobody's permission. Changing the look of a building here is another matter: the village has its own conservation area and sits inside the National Park, so painting, coating or sealing a wall that was not painted before can need consent even when the work looks like maintenance, and the National Park Authority sets out what that covers. Twenty-three designated entries sit in and around the village, and if yours is one of them we will tell you to check before we book a date.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
There is no square metre rate on this work. What is growing on a surface decides the time, not its size. A cottage on the street with nowhere to stand a tower, a detached house under mature oak on a gravel drive, and a riverside property where the water cannot simply be let run are three set-ups apart, and work at height rules settle whether a pole will reach. Old clay, soft lime-jointed brick and stone paving each take a different pressure. Two quotes for the same address are usually two different jobs, so ask about method, treatment and run off before you pick one.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Phone rather than fill in the form. Here the date is often a holiday let changeover, a sale, or scaffolding due off after roof work, and the river level after a wet spell can move it as well. Say the date on the call and we will tell you honestly whether the job can be done properly by then. Anything outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, we arrange.
The one local thing
The river, and where the water goes when it comes off
The Lymington River runs right through Brockenhurst, and a lot of properties are either on it or on a ditch that reaches it in a few metres. That changes how a clean is planned. Everything we wash off a roof or a wall has to end up somewhere, and here somewhere is often surface water that reaches the river faster than anywhere else we work. So the run-off gets decided before the method does. Planting and beds are wetted and sheeted, the gully is checked and covered where it discharges to a ditch, and biocide goes on at the strength on the label and never near a bank.
On the closest properties we work drier: hand scraping, a treatment applied rather than sprayed, and the minimum water needed to rinse. The pollution prevention guidance and the HSE biocide guidance both sit behind that, and it is the part of the job a cheap quote quietly leaves out.
The same water table is why things go green here in the first place. Ground that stays wet keeps walls and paving damp, so growth establishes faster and comes back sooner than it does on a dry site a few miles inland. Two practical points follow. Do not seal a patio that sits wet for weeks at a time, because you are trapping moisture under a film and it will lift.
And if your property has taken water before, silt on paving is a different job from organic growth, with different products and a different price, so tell us which you have. It is worth taking a minute to check the flood risk for your address before you plan any outside work at all.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Brockenhurst, Boldre, Sway and the SO42 lanes, and we are used to working around forest gates, gravel and cars parked tight on a village street. 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
Brockenhurst questions we get asked
The Lymington River runs past us. What about the wash water?
It changes where we put it. The Lymington River runs within metres of properties in Brockenhurst, and treated water reaching a live channel is not something to be casual about. We work back from the bank, contain whatever comes off hard surfaces and let it soak into soil rather than run to the water. With the river up after a wet week we would rather come back another day than push our luck.
Does the Brockenhurst conservation area cover washing a roof?
Washing is maintenance, so no. What the conservation area controls is appearance, which means a coating, a colour or a change of covering becomes a conversation with the New Forest National Park Authority instead. There are 23 listed entries in the village, the Church of St Nicholas among them, and on a listed building we will not put anything on the fabric that alters how it reads from the street.
What do you do differently on a pre-1900 cottage wall?
Drop the pressure to almost nothing and work by hand wherever the mortar is soft. 24.1% of Brockenhurst predates 1919 and the largest single band is pre-1900 at 18.8%, so plenty of these walls are solid, lime bedded and built to breathe. Jetting drives water through them and washes the joints out. A gentle rinse with a biocide left to work does the same job over some weeks without opening the wall up.
When is the right week to clear gutters under the forest?
Late November, once the leaf is off, and again in spring if the run sits under a canopy. Woodland presses tight against the gardens in Brockenhurst, so valleys and flat roof outlets silt up faster than the eaves gutter does, and those are the ones that show as a damp patch indoors. We clear the run, flush it and check the outlets rather than scooping out only what can be seen.
Does the exposed face of the cottage get washed first?
The south west one. That is the exposed face in this village, so it takes the driven rain, and the wind holds wet against the render around openings and at the corners instead of across the middle of a wall. Whatever is growing is thickest at the verge and the sill line on that side. Starting there also shows us how the surface behaves before we work round to the sheltered walls.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Brockenhurst
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Tell us what has gone green and we will tell you what it needs. The site visit and the itemised written quote are free.