Exterior cleaning in East Boldre
Gutters cleared, roofs and render soft washed, paving and outbuildings brought back, along the Forest edge at East Boldre. We look at it properly before we price it.
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 East Boldre is about keeping up with the Forest: the trees put more on your roof and walls than the weather ever takes off. A low pressure soft wash with a biocide behind it will hold it, and it wants doing on a rhythm rather than once every ten years when it has beaten you.
Forest edge plots like these in East Boldre suffer at the gutter, on the shaded roof and on any damp surface. A gutter has stopped taking water and it is coming over the front in every shower. The shaded half of a roof has gone properly green and somebody has told you the tiles are on their way out. Or a wall, a conservatory or a stretch of paving has grown a film that gets slippery every autumn.
We come out, survey each surface, and say plainly which of them will come up with a wash, which need treating and then time to work, and which we would leave alone. The site visit costs nothing and the written price itemises each surface separately, so you can do the gutters now and the rest in the spring.
The work
Cleaning work along the Forest edge
Gutters, downpipes and valleys. Oak leaf, holly, birch and pine needles pack the gutters on a Forest plot, with moss off the roof on top, so gutter clearing is worth booking on its own routine, valleys behind chimneys first.
A slope under the canopy never gets the sun that would dry it, so moss, algae and lichen establish far faster than they do on an open site. The growth comes off dry with a scrape first, then the tile is soft washed at low pressure and treated so what remains does not bring the regrowth straight back. We do not drive water up under the lap, and we do not walk a roof holding wet moss when a reach pole will do. If a ridge is rocking or the verge bedding has gone, that gets sorted before anything wet goes near it.
Stables, garaging, workshops and field shelters come with a Forest plot in East Boldre, and the fragile cement sheet roofs on a lot of them get no pressure at all: a solution and a rinse, from a platform alongside or a pole from the ground, never by walking on them. Block paving is washed and re-sanded, because the wash takes the jointing sand out with the weed. Gravel we leave, and say so, rather than charge you for stirring it about. Everything we spray is sold for the surface and used to its label, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires of anybody applying it.
How it runs
Cleaning roofs, walls and drives under forest trees
Thomas walks round, looks at each surface and what is growing on it, and writes an itemised quote giving the method for each surface, protection, access and disposal. He prices it himself and the visit is free. The cleaning then follows that quote.
Under tree cover in East Boldre, roofs, walls and paths stay damp, so moss, algae and lichen build up. Clay tile and slate roofs are cleaned by hand and treated with a biocide, never jet washed. Painted masonry and old brick get low pressure. A fragile cement sheet roof on a stable is never walked on. Plants are soaked and covered and the run off is collected. Where it would otherwise reach a ditch or soakaway, that matters even more, so we follow pollution prevention guidance, and Approved Document H is the reason surface water and foul drainage are kept apart. Cracked tiles or failed pointing found on the day are photographed and priced.
Cleaning in East Boldre is maintenance and needs no application, inside the National Park as much as outside it. The step to think about is a coating, sealant or paint on something that never had one, because the Park Authority looks hard at appearance, particularly inside a conservation area. Its heritage and conservation guidance explains how it treats that.
Cost
Growth, surface and height: pricing a clean
Nothing is priced by the metre, because years of growth under trees is a different job from a light film on an open wall.
The growth. Thick moss on a shaded roof is scraped off by hand before any biocide goes on, and lichen takes weeks of weather to let go.
The surface. Old tile and painted masonry each want their own pressure. Cement sheet wants none, and is cleaned from a platform or a pole, never from on top.
Access. A long low frontage you can walk a reach pole along, a two storey house set back behind planting, and a stable block with a fragile roof do not share one access plan. The work at height rules settle which we will take on and how.
Run off. Collecting water and residue so none of it reaches a ditch or pond takes time, and it is priced.
Treatment. A biocide that is left to work gives a longer result than a rinse, but it has to be applied in dry weather.
When comparing, find out how each surface will be cleaned, whether a treatment is part of it or just a rinse, and where the dirty water ends up.
If there is a date
Cleaning to a date: a sale, a let or an inspection
Tell us about a letting inspection, a sale or a family event when you ring. A gutter clear or a patio clean can be done close to the day, but a biocide on a roof or wall needs weeks of weather to finish working, and we would rather say so now than after you have paid.
The first visit gives you an honest plan for each surface against your date. We work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If time is tight, ring, and if nobody answers we come back to you as soon as we can.
One local thing
What the trees put back on, and how often
East Boldre sits on the open Forest, and that is not scenery when it comes to the outside of a building, it is a workload. Oak, holly, birch and Scots pine all shed on a different timetable, so there is no single week in the year when everything has come down and you can clear up once.
Add heather and gorse litter blowing off the heath, ponies and stock kicking dust onto low elevations, and canopy that keeps whole roof slopes and wall faces damp between showers. Growth here is not a sign that something has failed. It is what happens to any surface that never dries.
So the advice is about rhythm, not product. Have the gutters and valleys cleared in late autumn once the oak has finished. Treat roofs and render as well as washing them, because on a shaded Forest plot a rinse on its own is undone within a season and you end up paying for the same clean twice.
And when you compare quotes, ask whether the price includes taking what is scraped off the roof out of the gutter afterwards. On a property with this much overhead, a roof clean that leaves the debris in the guttering has simply moved the problem down a storey.
Who you are dealing with
Who you would be letting onto your roof
We clean houses in East Boldre, Boldre, Norleywood and the SO42 lanes between Beaulieu and Lymington, worked from our base in Boscombe on the Bournemouth side of the forest, 16.7 miles off. Planning belongs to the New Forest National Park Authority.
We trade as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and Thomas Hannen is the owner who prices each clean once he has seen it. A verified Checkatrade customer gave us 10 out of 10. The written quote sets out each surface and its method, and neither it nor the visit costs anything. Before you book a visit in East Boldre, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in East Boldre?
Most repairs in East Boldre 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 East Boldre |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for East Boldre. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest South East Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around East Boldre. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in East Boldre
We are in the Forest South East conservation area. What applies?
Nothing applies to a wash. That conservation area covers this stretch and the New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority, so appearance is scrutinised, but cleaning is not a change of appearance. Coating a roof or painting render is, and that has to be asked about beforehand. Eight listed entries sit in the settlement, and on those we keep to hand work with nothing left on the surface.
Does salt reach us this far in from the water?
Yes it does. East Boldre is 4.2km from the coast and salt travels a long way on a south westerly, settling on render and paving and holding damp on them once the rain stops. Damp surfaces grow algae faster, so the film returns sooner here than it would well inland. It is why we care more about the biocide left behind than about how hard the water hits a wall.
The heath comes to the fence. Does that change the clean?
It changes how fast the walls and paving green over. Open heath and scrub on the boundary keep the air damp and drop a steady drift of fine litter onto paths and into the bottom of the gutter, and both hold water. Paving by an East Boldre boundary stays slippery longer, so treat it as well as washing it. The same litter in the gutters can hold an outlet shut while the run looks clear from the ground.
The ground is sandy and drains fast. Does that help?
It does, which is unusual on our patch. Water put down at East Boldre soaks away instead of standing, so hard surfaces can be worked without turning the garden into a bog, and paving dries in time to be re-sanded on the same visit. We still keep treated water off planting and away from any ditch heading down towards the Solent, because fast drainage carries it further.
Is winter a bad time for this out on the forest?
Wind stops us more often than rain does. Working off a pole in an exposed spot stops being sensible above a certain strength, and the most exposed face here looks south west straight into it. Cold on its own is fine, and growth is soft after a wet spell, which makes it easier to shift. We book the treatment for settled days and fit the rest around them.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near East Boldre
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Free quote
Get the gutters and the shaded side looked at
A free site visit at East Boldre, then a written itemised price with every surface on its own line. Tell us if there is a date to work to.