Exterior cleaning in Corfe Mullen
Roof moss, blocked gutters, green pebbledash and tired block paving cleaned across Corfe Mullen, mostly without a platform on the drive.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Exterior cleaning in Corfe Mullen is mostly bungalow work done from the ground. The roofs are low and long, a pole reaches the walls and gutters, and a concrete tile that has gone green wants a dry scrape and a biocide, not a jet wash. No tower on the drive for a week, and usually a day on site.
Houses across Corfe Mullen tend to go wrong at the roof, the rainwater goods and the drive. A roof slope that has gone properly green, normally the one that faces away from the sun and never dries out. Gutters and downpipes that have quietly filled with moss dropping off that same roof, which is what causes the stain running down the render below the joint. And a block paved drive that has weed in every joint, black spot on the surface and has gone slippery where the cars drip.
You rarely need all of it doing at once, and we would sooner tell you which one is actually costing you money. Often that is the gutters. The site visit is free, the written quote is itemised so you can see each surface priced on its own, and if the answer is that the drive can wait another two years, that is what you will be told.
The work
Bungalow roofs, estate drives and everything in between
Roof cleaning, from the ground where we can. A third of the homes in Corfe Mullen are bungalows, which changes this job more than people expect. The roof is the largest single surface on the house and it is also the lowest, so a great deal of it is reachable on a pole from the drive instead of off a platform.
Moss comes off dry with a scrape and a brush, worked down the slope so nothing is driven up under the laps, the ridge and the valleys are cleared out, and then a biocide goes on so regrowth is slow. Sixty-two per cent of Corfe Mullen was built between 1945 and 1982 and a third of it in the 1970s and early 1980s, so the tile is mostly concrete interlocking of one age, and a jet wash strips the surface off that tile and leaves it quicker to green up than it was before.
All that roof moss ends up in the gutters, and once an outlet packs, water goes over the front edge and puts a green streak down the render. Sort that with a gutter clear in Corfe Mullen before the render is touched, or the streak comes straight back.
Plenty of pebbledash and painted render on the older closes, brickwork on the later ones. It is soft wash work: low pressure through a wide nozzle, a treatment left to do the job, then a rinse. Pebbledash in particular hates a lance, because the stones are only held in a thin bed of mortar and force takes them off in patches you will look at for years. A lot of the block paving here went down in the eighties and nineties and is now at the stage where it wants a wash, the weed out and a re-sand, and no relaying yet. Kiln dried sand back in the joints is what keeps the blocks locked together. Planting against the wall is wetted and sheeted first, and every drain the water will reach is covered and checked.
How it runs
Cleaning concrete tiles, pebbledash and block paving
Thomas looks at every surface and prices the clean himself. Here that usually means concrete tile roofs with moss, pebbledash or painted render with green streaks, and block paving from the eighties. Each takes a different method and pressure. The quote sets out the method for each surface, protection, access, any biocide and the disposal on separate lines. All of it sits on one written quote from one company.
Plants, windows and cars are protected, gutters are cleared after roof moss comes down, and runoff is kept out of the road gullies, as pollution prevention guidance expects. Moss and sludge are bagged and leave with us. A cracked tile, blown render or sunken blocks that the clean reveals are pointed out with a photo and a separate price; repairing them is your choice.
Washing a house is maintenance, and no one's permission is needed for it. Painting or coating the walls afterwards is also your call for nearly every address here. A listed house is the exception, and houses inside the Sleight Lane and Brogg Street conservation area should talk to Dorset Council before a coating changes how the walls look; the Planning Portal page on external walls explains the rules. We check which side of that line your address falls before quoting.
Cost
Moss, algae and weeds: what an exterior clean costs
We do not charge by area. The growth on each surface, and how much pressure it can take, decides the time.
The surface. Older concrete tiles, pebbledash and block paving laid in the eighties all need different handling. Tiles are scraped and then treated, since a jet forces water up under the laps and wears the surface away. Pebbledash gets a soft wash so the stones stay put. Block paving can take pressure, and is re-sanded afterwards so the blocks stay locked.
Treatment. A biocide kills the roots of moss and algae so they do not come straight back, under the biocides regime the HSE administers. It works over weeks, and a return visit may be part of the job.
Access. A detached bungalow with a drive to park on, a chalet bungalow with dormers in the roof, and a semi on one of the closes with nowhere to pull in are three different jobs, and the work at height rules settle whether a pole does it or a tower is needed.
Weeds. Weeds in block paving joints come back unless the roots are killed and the joints refilled, which adds time.
Ask any other quote the method for each surface, whether the biocide and re-sanding are included, and where the runoff goes.
If there is a date
A sale, a survey or a date to be ready for
If you are working to a date, ring and tell us. A house sale, a survey, a family event or a new tenant all change the plan. Coming out to look first is easy from eight and a half miles away.
For a sale, clearing the gutters and washing the front the buyer will see may be the sensible first step, with the full roof treatment later, because a biocide takes weeks to finish its work. A slippery drive or path gets sorted first. Cleaning is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. No answer means we are working; you get a call back once we are off the ladder, as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The whole village greens over at the same time
Most of Corfe Mullen went up in one long run between the war and the early eighties, with the busiest years in the seventies. That means the roofs on a close went on within a season or two of each other, the drives were laid at the same time, and the render was finished the same way by the same firms.
So they do not wear out one at a time. They arrive at the same state together, which is why the moss on your roof looks exactly like the moss on the three houses either side, and why a whole street can suddenly seem to need doing at once.
That has a practical side and a cautionary one. The first is practical: if neighbours are in the same position, ask us to look at two or three houses in one visit. Setting up, getting the kit out and getting the waste away happens once instead of three times, and that shows in the quote rather than in a discount we made up. The second is a warning.
Where an entire estate reaches the same age, someone will always turn a cleaning job into a bigger sale, usually a sprayed coating over the tiles once the roof has been cleaned. A concrete tile that has gone green is not a failed roof. Clean it, treat it, keep the gutters clear and look at it again in a few years, and if a tile is genuinely spalling or a ridge is loose, that is a repair to price on its own merits rather than a reason to coat the lot.
Who you are dealing with
Who cleans your roof and drive, and how to check
We clean houses across Corfe Mullen and out to Broadstone, Merley, Wimborne Minster, Lytchett Matravers and Upton, about eight and a half miles from our Boscombe base. Corfe Mullen is under Dorset Council, while Broadstone and Merley are BCP Council. Thomas Hannen, the owner, looks at each job and prices it himself.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Checkatrade lists a 10 out of 10 from one verified customer. We charge nothing to come out, and the written quote sets out every surface and the method for each one. Before you book a visit in Corfe Mullen, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Corfe Mullen?
Most repairs in Corfe Mullen 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.
| Question | In Corfe Mullen |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Corfe Mullen. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Brogg Street / Sleight Lane Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Corfe Mullen. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Corfe Mullen. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Corfe Mullen
Is there any heritage rule to worry about in Corfe Mullen?
Rarely. A listed house needs consent before its finish changes, and the one conservation area, around Brogg Street and Sleight Lane, covers a small part of Corfe Mullen, so for almost every house here washing, and even coating afterwards, is your decision rather than something Dorset Council holds a view on. Inside that conservation area, check before you coat or paint. It also means we can talk about what genuinely suits the covering instead of what happens to be permitted.
Most of the road is bungalows. How do you reach the roof?
Off a ladder at the eaves, or a light tower where the ground is level. 33.6% of Corfe Mullen is single storey, which puts the gutter line low enough to work from the ground and keeps scaffold off most of these roofs. The catch is how much covering there is per house. Low does not mean small, and there is a lot of hip and verge to travel along at that height.
Why do the tile edges look worse than the middle?
Because the edges hold the mortar and that is where weather does its work. 62.1% of Corfe Mullen went up between 1945 and 1982, with a third of the settlement from the 1970s and early 1980s at 34.5%, so verge and ridge bedding round here arrived at the same stage together. Washing loose bedding is how a clean turns into a repair, so we look first and say what wants pointing.
The heath keeps our shaded slope green. What then?
Treat it, and expect to treat it again in time. With heath and woodland close by, a slope in Corfe Mullen that faces away from the sun stays damp and collects fine litter at the tile edges, which is what the moss roots into. A dry scrape and a biocide left to work keep it back for a good while. The valley and any flat roof outlet below it are a gutter clearing job, best done in the same visit.
Can you do the drive and patio without touching the house?
Yes, and a fair few people do exactly that. The ground at Corfe Mullen holds water, so we take the mess off with a brush and a vacuum instead of flushing it into the lawn, then refill the joints once the surface has dried out. The written quote is itemised, so the drive, the path and the patio are separate lines and you can do one of them this year.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Corfe Mullen
Nearby places we also cover for exterior cleaning, with straight-line distances from Corfe Mullen, and the other trades we offer in Corfe Mullen itself.
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Soft washing vs pressure washing: safe for a roof? How to clean a patio without damaging it Moss on a roof: does it need removing?Everything we do in Corfe Mullen Exterior cleaning, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a written price for your Corfe Mullen clean
Send the postcode and tell us what needs doing. We come out, look at the roof, the gutters and the paving, and put the price in writing.