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. On a three storey block a blocked outlet puts water down a rendered wall for months before anybody rings, so gutter clearing is worth doing before the render is washed. A quarter of Christchurch is terraced and the gutter is often shared, so doing one house and not the next is money half spent.

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 Christchurch 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.

We do not price by the metre. A surface with years of growth on it is a different job from the same surface carrying a light film.

Height. 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. The roofwork rules decide whether a pole reaches or a tower goes up.

What is growing. A green film on render generally goes with one biocide treatment and a rinse. Black lichen and thick moss take longer and may need a second treatment. In damp air by the water, growth tends to come back sooner, so a follow-up treatment is worth pricing in.

The surface. Soft old brick, painted render, concrete tiles and block paving each take their own pressure and cleaning product. The wrong one damages the surface, so the method is written on the quote.

Run-off. Dirty water and biocide must not go straight into a surface water drain that runs to the river, as pollution prevention guidance makes clear, so it is controlled and collected.

Ask any other quote which surfaces are treated and which only rinsed, what pressure goes on the roof, and where the run-off ends up.

We cover Christchurch and the BH23 postcodes, from the town centre and the quay out through Highcliffe, Burton, Mudeford and Bransgore. From our Boscombe base the town is 2.7 miles, and its council is BCP.

The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it; he looks over every surface and writes the price for the clean himself. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit, and the written quote broken down by surface is free too. Before you book a visit in Christchurch, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Christchurch 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.