Exterior cleaning in Burley
Moss, algae and lichen off roofs, walls, gutters and paving, starting with the side that never dries.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In Burley the front of the house is rarely the problem. It is the shaded side and the slope facing away from the sun that go green first, and that is where most of the money in a clean should be spent.
The three calls we get from the village are much the same. Somebody has come back from a walk, looked at their own roof from the lane and seen how dark one pitch has gone. A gutter is running over and there is a green stripe down the wall beneath it. Or the patio and the parking area have gone slippery and a guest has mentioned it.
We come out and look properly, at the roof from both sides, at the gutters and at the ground, and then you get a written price with the roof, each elevation and each hard area on its own line. If half of it can wait a year, we will say which half.
The work
What a clean here actually covers
Roof clean on tile and slate. The local aspect is north west, and a slope that gets no direct sun stays damp most of the year, so growth here is thick rather than patchy and it packs into the laps and the bottom courses where the water runs slowest. That gets lifted out by hand and scraped off the tile face from a pole or a tower, then treated with an approved biocide at the strength on the label so what is left in the surface dies rather than springs back. The ridge is checked before anything else, because bedding mortar that is already cracked will not survive water aimed at it. Nobody walks on an old covering, and we do not jet wash one.
The village runs to painted masonry, render, some pebbledash and plain brickwork, and the sheltered elevations pick up algae, black spot and lichen quickly. None of that comes off properly with a pressure wash. A soft wash does it: treatment, dwell time, then a rinse at low pressure through a wide nozzle. A lance held close strips paint, opens a joint and drives water into the wall. Under this much oak and holly, clearing gutters is the job that pays for itself: by hand into a bag, then the whole run flushed and every outlet and downpipe watched. Valleys and the gutter behind a lean-to fill first and are the ones people never see.
Working where the animals are. The stock wander into gardens here, so nothing is left standing about. Containers stay shut and on the van, no bucket of solution is left down, hoses are coiled when we stop, and gates are shut behind us every single time. Planting is wetted and sheeted before we start, gullies and drains are covered so nothing backs up, and residue is kept away from ditches heading out to the heath, which is what pollution prevention guidance and HSE biocide guidance sit behind. Gravel, block paving, slabs and concrete go green here rather than merely dirty, and green is what makes them slippery, so block paving is re-sanded once the weed and the old joint sand are out. Anything above single storey is work at height.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The written quote breaks it down surface by surface, with protection, access and disposal priced separately so you can compare it properly. Thomas Hannen looks at it and prices it, and neither the visit nor the quote costs anything. Cleaning needs no permission from anyone. Painting, coating or sealing a wall afterwards can, and Burley has its own conservation area as well as sitting inside the National Park, so a change of colour or finish is not the same as maintenance. If you are not sure which side of the line your address falls, the National Park property map shows where the boundary runs. Seven designated entries sit in and around the village, where even like-for-like external work wants checking first.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
We do not quote by the metre. The growth decides how long a surface takes, not the measurement. A thatched cottage with nowhere to stand a tower, a chalet on a gravel drive under mature oaks, and a stable block out on a paddock are three different set-ups before anybody starts, and work at height rules settle which is a pole and which is a tower. A north west slope that has never dried out wants a treatment and a second visit, not more pressure. Comparing quotes, ask what method each surface gets, whether treatment is included or only a rinse, and where the run off goes.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. In a village with this many holiday lets the date is usually a changeover or a booking, and we will tell you honestly whether the treatment has time to work before your guests arrive rather than book it and rush it. We are about ten miles out, so a look first is no trouble. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
The side that never dries out
Burley sits low, under trees, with the ground sloping the way it does, and the practical result is that a north or north-west facing surface here gets almost no direct sun from October to March. It never properly dries. Moss and algae do not need much more than that: shade, moisture and something slightly rough to hold on to.
It is why the same roof can look almost clean from the road and be an inch deep in moss on the back pitch, and why two identical houses a hundred yards apart can be years apart in how they look. When we quote, we quote the pitches and the elevations separately for exactly this reason. On plenty of properties the sensible spend is the shaded half of the roof and the shaded wall, and leaving the sunny side alone until it actually needs something.
It also changes what you should expect afterwards. On an open, sunny site a scrape and a treatment can hold for years. On a shaded slope under oak the spores land constantly and the surface stays damp, so regrowth starts sooner no matter who does the work or what they charge. Anyone promising you a permanently clean roof in this village is selling something.
The honest approach is a proper clean once, a treatment that does the slow work, and a look at the gutters on a routine, with a top up treatment on the shaded side rather than a full clean every few years. Cutting back what overhangs the roof does more for the interval than any product does.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Burley, Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Hangersley and the BH24 lanes, and we are used to narrow access, forest gates and nowhere obvious to park a van. 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
Burley questions we get asked
Why is one slope of our roof green and the other clear?
Shade. The local aspect at Burley is north west, so one slope sits out of direct sun for most of the year and never properly dries between showers. Moss and algae want damp more than they want anything else, so they establish on that face long before the open side shows a mark. It is also why cleaning that slope on its own is often the sensible job rather than doing the whole roof.
Do the National Park rules apply to cleaning a house here?
The New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Burley, and the village carries its own conservation area, so anything visible does get looked at. Cleaning is not a change of appearance, so it needs nothing at all. Painting, coating or recolouring afterwards is, and that has to be asked about first. Seven listed entries sit in the settlement, and those we work by hand rather than with anything powered.
Will the wash leave our garden waterlogged?
It should not, though the ground round Burley holds water rather than taking it away, so we keep the volume low. Soft washing uses a fraction of what a jet washer throws at a surface, and we run the water off onto grass in several places instead of one soaked patch. If the beds are already standing wet on the day we sheet them over and work from the hard ground.
Is a dry spell worth waiting for out here?
For the treatment, yes. The wash itself does not much care, but a biocide needs a few dry hours on the surface to do anything, and on the shaded side of a roof at Burley it is the treatment doing the real work rather than the water. We watch the forecast and book that part into a settled window. Gutters and hard surfaces we will clear in almost any weather.
How soon can you come out and look?
Burley is about ten miles from base, so it is a normal run for us and not a special trip. Thomas Hannen comes himself to look and to price it. He gets a ladder on the eaves to see what is under the growth, because a covering that has already worked loose needs saying out loud before anybody wets it. The visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
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Ask what your shaded side needs
We will look at both pitches, price them separately and put it in writing. The visit and the quote cost nothing.