Exterior cleaning in Bryanston
Roofs, brick and flint walls, gutters and paving cleaned without loosening the mortar.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Nearly everything worth cleaning in Bryanston is brick, flint or clay tile with soft mortar behind it, and it sits under big parkland trees. That combination rules out a pressure lance and rules in a treatment, a bit of patience and a second visit if it needs one.
People here ring for three reasons. The roof slope facing the trees has gone dark and the moss is filling the gutter. A brick or flint elevation has greened over on the shaded side and now looks nothing like the rest of the row. Or the paving and the parking area have gone black and slippery under the canopy, which after a wet autumn happens quickly.
We come out, look at what the walls are actually built of, and price the roof, each elevation and each hard surface as its own line. Where we think a surface is better treated than washed, or better left alone, that goes on the quote too, with the reason written next to it.
The work
Brick, flint, tile and everything under the trees
Flint and brick walls with lime mortar. Estate-built cottages, garden walls and the long boundary walls along the lanes here are brick, knapped flint, or the two banded together, and the joints are lime. Flint is glass hard and could take almost anything. The mortar around it cannot, and a jet wash pops flints out of a panel one at a time. So this is soft wash work: an approved biocide at the strength on the label, dwell time, then a low pressure rinse with a wide nozzle, or a brush and no water at all. Where a wall has already lost mortar, we point that out and leave it for repointing before it gets washed.
Clay tile roofs and the moss line. Plain clay tile with mortar bedded ridges is the common covering on the older fifth of the village, and moss builds first in the bottom third of the slope and along the laps, which is exactly where water needs to run freely. A roof clean means lifting that growth out by hand from a pole or tower, then treating what is left so the roots die instead of coming straight back. Nobody walks the roof. Old clay is brittle, and the mortar on a ridge of that age will not survive being aimed at.
Sooty mould is the local one. The mature parkland trees drop honeydew through the summer and a black film grows on it. It is not algae or lichen, it is stickier, and it lands on cars, paving, window frames and the top of a render band. It comes off with the right product and a gentle rinse; force just moves it around and takes the paint with it. Lime and chestnut leaf is big and wet and blocks an outlet fast, so clearing is by hand into a bag, then the run is flushed and every downpipe watched. A gutter behind a parapet comes first, because that is the one that puts water inside a wall rather than down the front of it.
Nearly a third of the housing here is terraced and almost a quarter is flats, so a lot of this is one elevation in a run of them, and doing one and not the next is money half spent. Gravel, block paving, stone paving and concrete all take a different pressure, and a rendered plinth beside them takes less again. Block paving is washed, weeded out and re-sanded so the blocks lock up again. Planting is wetted and sheeted first, gullies and drains are covered and watched, and residue is kept out of any ditch running to the Stour, which is what pollution prevention guidance and HSE guidance on biocide use both come down to. Anything above single storey is work at height.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Every line is written out: what goes on each surface, how the planting and drains are protected, how we reach it, and where the residue goes. The visit is free, the written quote is free, and Thomas Hannen does the pricing. Cleaning needs no consent from anybody. What you do to a wall afterwards might: Bryanston sits in the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston Conservation Area, so painting, sealing or coating something that was bare brick, flint or stone is a change of appearance rather than maintenance. The Planning Portal explains what counts as work to an external wall, and Dorset Council's page on listed building consent covers the eleven designated entries here, which are concentrated on the school estate rather than in the housing.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
Nobody can price a clean off an area alone. Two walls the same size can be an hour apart. An estate cottage on a lane with a hedge tight against the wall, a tall brick elevation standing on parkland turf, and a flint boundary wall on the roadside are three different set-ups, and work at height rules settle whether a tower goes up. Lime-jointed flint, painted render and block paving each want their own pressure, and one of them wants none. Ask what goes on each surface, whether the price includes a return visit, and where the water ends up.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Use the phone rather than the form. The date here is usually a sale, a tenancy changeover or scaffolding coming off after other work, and school term dates move the access on that side of the village. Give us the date and we will tell you honestly whether it can be done properly by then. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
The one local thing
A conservation area, and a village that matches itself
Bryanston is inside the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston Conservation Area, and the practical effect for a homeowner is about what happens after the clean rather than the clean itself. Washing a wall is maintenance and nobody needs to approve it. Painting a brick or flint elevation that was never painted, putting a coloured render over it, or sealing it with a water repellent film, are changes of appearance and can need consent in their own right.
The eleven or so designated entries around here sit mainly on the school estate, the Portman Chapel among them, rather than among the houses, so most homeowners are dealing with the conservation area rules rather than listed building consent. It is still worth checking your own address before committing to anything that changes colour or finish.
The other half of it is the village looking like itself. A lot of the housing was built as a matched estate, in the same brick and the same flint, in rows and pairs. Clean one elevation of a matched pair to bright new brick and you have not improved the row, you have made your neighbour's half look neglected and your own look scrubbed. Two things follow.
First, aim for the growth off rather than the weathering off: taking a wall back to as-built is neither achievable on soft brick nor desirable. Second, if you share a boundary wall or a terrace front, ask the neighbours before you book. Doing a whole run in one visit costs less per house than doing them one at a time, and it leaves the street looking right.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We work across Bryanston, Blandford St Mary, Blandford Forum, Stourpaine and the DT11 villages along the Stour valley. 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
Bryanston questions we get asked
We are mid terrace. Can our gutter be done alone?
Not really, and it is worth knowing before you ring round. 31.1% of the dwellings here are terraced, which means a continuous gutter over several houses running to one fall. Clear your length only and the blockage moves along to the next joint, then comes back at you. We would rather price the whole run and split it between the households, or clear the lot and settle it with whoever called us out.
Does the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston conservation area limit this?
Not for cleaning. The Blandford St Mary and Bryanston Conservation Area controls how a building looks, and a wash puts it back to how it looked, so no consent comes into it. What the designation does catch is a sealer, a coating or a colour change afterwards, and that would go to Dorset Council first. The same care applies near the 11 listed entries here, the Portman Chapel at Bryanston School included.
We hold a lease on a flat. Who instructs the work?
The freeholder or the managing agent, in almost every case. Nearly a quarter of the dwellings in this area are flats at 23.7%, and the roof, the walls and the shared paths belong to the building rather than to any one home, so the work is funded through the service charge. A leaseholder can ask for a quote and pass it up, and we are content to send it to both of you.
We are inland here. Why is the render still black?
Because it is not salt doing it. At 26.0km from the coast nothing is being kept damp by sea air, so what you have is algae and lichen living off shade, tree cover and rain that lingers on a rough face. It is a film rather than a crust. A biocide kills it and it then weathers away over several weeks, which looks slower than jetting but leaves the render surface intact.
Does Thomas look at the property before quoting?
He does, every time, and he prices it himself afterwards. He walks the plot at Bryanston, paces out the gutter runs, looks at the state of the render and the paving and works out how much can be done from the ground. The visit is free and so is the written quote, which is itemised, so the house, the outbuildings and the paths appear as separate lines you can take or leave.
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Get it looked at before it is booked
We will come out, tell you what each surface needs and what it does not, and put it in writing. Both are free.