Exterior cleaning in Christchurch

Communal blocks, walkways and bin stores. Close to four in ten homes in Christchurch are flats, and the blocks throw up their own jobs: a render elevation greening on the side that never sees the sun, concrete stair cores and walkways gone slippery, bin store surrounds, and the parking court underneath it all. This is soft wash work. Low pressure, a biocide left to do the job, and no lance anywhere near a painted surface. It gets scheduled around residents, so walkways are done in sections rather than closing the way in and out of somebody's front door for a day. The outside of a flat belongs to the freeholder and is managed out of the service charge, so it is worth knowing before you ring whether you are the person who can instruct it.

Gutters, downpipes and flat roof outlets. The most common fault we find is not a full gutter, it is a blocked outlet at the head of a downpipe, and on a three storey block that means water down a rendered wall for months before anybody rings. We clear the runs, the outlets, the valleys and any flat roof gully, then run water through and watch where it goes. A quarter of the town is terraced and the gutter is often shared, so doing one house and not the next is money half spent, and we will say if the run wants doing as a whole.

Two kilometres from the coast, salt keeps a wall damp between showers and growth comes back faster than it does inland, which is why the treatment matters more here than the wash itself. Concrete and clay tile out on the eighties estates, some slate closer in. Moss comes off dry with a scrape and a brush, the ridge and the valleys are cleared out, and a biocide goes on so regrowth is slow rather than immediate. No jet wash on a tiled roof: pressure lifts the laps, strips the surface off a concrete tile and forces water where the roof was never designed to take it. Gull mess washes off in the same visit.

Painted render fronts, pebbledash on the older semis and brickwork on the newer estates all get soft washed through a wide nozzle at low pressure, with the treatment doing the work. A fifth of the town predates 1919 and that soft mortar gets no force at all, because a raked out joint costs far more to put right than the cleaning ever saved. Block paving is washed, weeded and re-sanded with kiln dried sand so the blocks stay locked together, slabs are cleared of lichen black spot, and the path by a door is done first because that is where somebody slips. Planting is wetted and sheeted, and every drain and gully in the fall of the water is covered and checked.

Nothing here is priced by the metre. A surface with years of growth on it is a different job from the same surface carrying a film. A ground floor flat off a shared walkway, a three storey block with the gutters over a parking court, and a terraced house on one of the streets behind the quay all sit at different heights, and work at height rules settle whether a pole reaches or a tower goes up. Two quotes for the same address are usually two different jobs, so ask about method, treatment and run off before you choose.

We cover Christchurch and the BH23 postcodes, from the town centre and the quay out through Highcliffe, Burton, Mudeford and Bransgore. 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.