Exterior cleaning in Cranborne
Gutters cleared, roof moss taken off dry and old walls washed at a pressure they can take, across Cranborne and the surrounding lanes.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Under this many trees the gutters are usually the job that matters, not the wash. Clear the runs, the valleys and the outlets first, then treat the green with a biocide at low pressure. Debris is what holds the damp that grows the moss, so clearing it is the cheapest part of keeping a Cranborne building clean.
People here ring us for one of three reasons. Water coming over the front of a gutter in the first heavy rain of the autumn. A roof slope thick enough with moss that lumps of it are dropping into the beds below. Or paving, steps and a path that have gone green and slippery, which around here happens on the shaded side of the house months before it happens anywhere else.
We look at each surface separately and price it that way, because on an old building the right method changes from one wall to the next. The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. If the honest answer is that a gutter clear and a treatment on one elevation is all it needs this year, that is what you get.
The work
Old walls, big trees and full gutters
Gutters, valleys, downpipes and outlets. This is the first job on most buildings here and the one that saves the most money. Leaf comes down over about six weeks and then keeps trickling all winter, and it does not usually block the run first. It blocks the outlet where the downpipe starts, and after that the water goes over the edge and down the wall. Where the rainwater goods are cast iron, sitting full is what rots them from the inside. We clear the runs, the valleys and the outlets, flush them through, check the fall, and take the debris away rather than leaving it on your borders.
Moss on a shaded slope under a canopy never gets a chance to dry, so it mats up and holds water against the tile. It comes off dry, by scrape and brush, worked down the slope so nothing is driven up under the laps, with the ridge and the valleys cleared out properly, and then a biocide so the spores die back. A roof here is never jet washed: pressure lifts the laps, breaks old mortar bedding at the ridge and drives water into the roof space.
Where a wall is old brickwork, flint or anything bedded in lime mortar, it gets a wide nozzle, low pressure and a treatment left to do the work, because force takes the joint out before it takes the algae off. Green on a north wall is normal out this way and it comes back; a treatment slows it down, nothing stops it. Barns, stables and workshops, which most properties here have more of than the house itself, get the same rules, and the gutters on them get cleared while the kit is out.
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. Thomas Hannen comes out to price it and both the visit and the written quote are free. Cleaning is maintenance and needs no application. Coating is a different thing. There is a conservation area over the village and around two dozen listed entries in the parish, the manor house among them, so anything that would paint, seal or recolour a surface wants checking with Dorset Council first, and on a listed building the work itself can need listed building consent. We check the address before we quote.
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. A cottage on the street with nowhere to park, a farmhouse up a long track, and a house on one of the newer closes are three different jobs before anything comes off the van, and work at height rules settle whether a pole will do. Lime-jointed brick and flint, painted render and old stone flags each want their own pressure, and one of them wants none. If you are weighing two prices, find out which surfaces get a biocide and which get a rinse, and what happens to the water.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Use the phone rather than the form. Cranborne is around half an hour from us, so coming out to look before you fix a date is no trouble. Autumn is the busy end here because everyone wants the gutters done at once, so ring before the leaf is fully off rather than after. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
Worth knowing
Trees set the timetable, and the ditch decides the method
The village sits among mature trees and estate woodland, and that changes the maintenance interval more than it changes the work. A building under a canopy fills its gutters several times faster than one on an open estate, the shaded slopes stay wet for days after the rain has stopped, and debris lying in a valley is exactly the damp bed that moss and algae need to take hold.
So the useful pattern here is a clear in late autumn once the leaf is down, and a second look in spring. Do that and the cleaning itself gets smaller every time. Skip it for five years and the moss on the roof is a day's work instead of an hour's.
The second thing trees and open country change is where the water is allowed to go. On the lanes here there is often no roadside gully at all, so whatever comes off a roof or a drive ends up on the verge, in a ditch or heading for a watercourse. That is why we cover the drains and gullies before we start, wet and sheet the planting nearest the wall, keep products to the rate printed on the label under the biocides regime the HSE administers, and take the moss and debris away with us rather than flushing it off the property.
The government's pollution prevention guidance is what sets that standard, and on a gravel drive it matters twice over, because the run off carries silt as well as treatment.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Cranborne and the BH21 postcodes across the chase, out through Alderholt, Sixpenny Handley, Verwood and Wimborne Minster. 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
Cranborne questions we get asked
Does the Cranborne conservation area stop us cleaning the brickwork?
It does not. The Cranborne Conservation Area controls what a building looks like, and washing returns it to what it looked like, so there is no application to make. Where the designation bites is on a coating, a paint colour or a change of material afterwards, and Dorset Council would want sight of that first. With 25 listed entries here, Cranborne Manor House among them, many walls carry protection of their own.
What does low pressure washing do to lime mortar?
Nothing, provided the pressure genuinely stays low. Lime is softer than the brick around it and a jet finds the joint first, opening it up and driving water into a wall that was built to dry out through its own face. Around Cranborne we hand wash, apply a biocide and let that do the work over some weeks. The wall looks untouched on the day and clean a month later.
The lane is overhung with trees. What does that do?
It doubles the work in the gutters and keeps everything damp. Cranborne sits in the Cranborne Chase National Landscape with tree cover close in on most properties, so gutters carry leaf, twig and blossom right through the year rather than in one autumn burst, and the shade means shaded walls never dry. Two clears a year is realistic, and roof growth returns faster than it would on open ground.
Would you quote for the outbuildings and garden walls too?
Yes, and they are worth doing on the same visit while the kit is already set up. Old garden walls and brick outbuildings around Cranborne usually want gentler handling than the house, and copings and wall heads are where water finds a way in once growth has been disturbed. Each structure goes onto the written quote as its own line, so you decide what actually happens.
Is a settled dry week better for the treatment out here?
It makes a real difference. The ground drains freely here, which helps underfoot, but the treatment wants several hours of dry surface to bite, and a shower inside that window rinses it away before it has achieved anything. We watch the forecast and put that part into a settled run, then let it break the growth down slowly. Gutters and paths we clear in whatever weather turns up.
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Send the postcode and tell us what needs doing. We come out, look at every surface and every gutter run, and put the price in writing.