Exterior cleaning in Everton
Roof cleaning, render and masonry soft washing, gutters cleared and paving brought back across Everton and Hordle. Mostly done from the ground, and priced surface by surface.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of Everton can be cleaned from the ground. The single storey stock here puts the whole roof, the gutters and every wall inside reach pole range, which keeps access out of the price and means a roof clean is a day rather than a week of scaffold.
People ring for the obvious things. The roof has gone green across the back and looks twice its age from the lane. The render is streaked and patchy on the sheltered side of the house. The drive is slippery every autumn and the block paving has weed through the joints. Or the gutters have not been touched since the last owner.
We come and survey it surface by surface, because a concrete tile roof, a painted render wall and a block paved drive want three different methods, and only one of those surfaces should ever meet a proper pressure wash. You get told what will come up, what needs treating and then leaving to work, and what is not worth your money. The site visit is free, the written price itemises every surface, and you can take part of it.
The work
The jobs a bungalow village generates
Roof cleaning, which is most of what we do here. 41.7% of the homes in Everton are bungalows, and a bungalow is roughly twice the roof for the same floor area. That is a lot of concrete interlocking tile, most of it laid between the 1950s and the early 1980s and porous enough by now to hold moss like a sponge. The growth is scraped off dry, the tile is soft washed at low pressure and then treated so the spores left in the surface do not bring the regrowth back the following winter. No water is forced up under the lap. The upside of a low roof is real: no scaffold, no tower on most of them, and the ridge and the verges get looked at properly while we are there.
Post-war Everton is a lot of painted masonry and pebbledash, and a bungalow presents it as one long face rather than two storeys of it. Two and a half kilometres from the sea, salt keeps that face damp between showers, so growth returns faster than it does inland and the biocide matters more than the wash. Black spot lichen and algae take the sheltered elevations first, and soft washing lifts it over a few weeks without touching the paint. A jet wash held close will take paint, and on pebbledash it takes the pebbles too, which is a repair rather than a clean.
Gutters here are low enough to clear from a ladder or a vacuum pole and long enough to hold a surprising amount. We rod the outlets, check the joints, and photograph the inside so you can see what came out. Where a garage or a carport discharges onto a drive rather than into a gully, we will tell you, because that is usually the reason one strip of the paving is always green. Block paving is re-sanded after washing, since the wash takes the jointing sand out with the weed, and sealing only works on genuinely dry paving. Felt and rubber flat roofs get cleared and washed gently, no pressure, because the only thing between you and the deck is a membrane. Everything applied is a biocide sold for the surface and used to its label, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised: method, protection, access and disposal on separate lines. Thomas Hannen comes out and prices the job himself, and the visit is free. Nothing about cleaning needs consent. There is no conservation area over Everton, and the fifteen listed entries in this corner of the parish sit among the farms rather than in the housing, so for almost every address the outside is your own decision, including painting the render or sealing the paving later. Planning Portal guidance on external walls covers the point at which changing a wall stops being maintenance. Where the water goes we do plan, following pollution prevention guidance rather than washing residue into the nearest gully.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
The measurement is the least useful number on a cleaning quote. What is on the surface sets the time. A bungalow you can walk a pole right around, a chalet with dormers over a narrow side path, and a detached house with a conservatory across the back are three different jobs before a hose is unrolled, and work at height rules settle whether a tower is needed. Salt-damp render and a flat roof membrane sit at opposite ends of the pressure range. Ask what goes on each surface, whether the price includes a return visit, and where the water ends up.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. Tell us if it is a sale, because the roof is the thing that ages a bungalow in a photograph and it is also the thing that takes longest to finish working once it has been treated. We are twelve miles along the coast road, so a look first is easy. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
One local thing
Salt air, and why it comes back quicker here
Everton is under two miles from the water, and that changes the maintenance interval more than anything else about the place. Salt-laden air keeps render, paving and roof tile faintly damp between showers instead of letting them dry out properly, and damp is the only thing algae and lichen actually need.
Sea air also carries fine salt onto the seaward elevations, which stays in the surface and holds moisture there. The result is familiar to anybody who has lived here a while: the wall that faces the Solent weathers, and the wall that gets no sun goes green, and both of them do it faster than the same wall would five miles inland.
What that should change about what you buy is simple. A wash on its own is poorer value here than almost anywhere, because it removes what is on the surface and does nothing about what is in it. Paying for the treatment as well as the wash is the difference between coming back in a season and coming back in years.
It is also worth rinsing salt off before any biocide goes on, or you are asking a product to work through a film that is holding water against the wall. When you compare quotes, ask whether a treatment is included at all or whether the price is a rinse with a nice word in front of it, and ask what they expect the interval to be on the seaward side as against the sheltered side. Anyone who says the two are the same has not worked this coast.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Everton, Hordle, Milford on Sea, Lymington and the SO41 villages behind the coast, worked from our base along the road at Bournemouth. 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
Everton questions we get asked
Why does the green come back so fast on this side?
Salt and shade together. Everton is 2.6km from the coast, and salt sitting on a surface draws moisture out of the air and keeps render and paving wet long after rain has stopped, which is precisely what algae need. A wash on its own strips the film and leaves the surface ready to grow again. What buys you time is the treatment left behind, not how clean it looked on the day.
Can the whole job be done from the ground?
On most houses here, yes. 41.7% of Everton is bungalows, so the gutter line is within comfortable pole reach and the covering can be worked from a ladder set at the eaves with nothing erected. That keeps the job short and keeps boots off the tiles. Two storey work is a different matter, and we say at the quote stage what needs a tower and what does not.
Our estate all went up around 1960. Does that matter?
It matters for what we find under the moss. 49.2% of the housing here was put up in the years from 1945 to 1982, with the largest slice from the late 1950s and early 1960s at 16.6%, so ridge and verge bedding on these roofs is all of an age and a lot of it has worked loose. Cleaning does not cause that, it reveals it, so we look before wetting anything.
Which council covers Everton for anything visible?
New Forest District, rather than the National Park Authority, because this village falls outside the Park boundary. That surprises people who assume everything with a forest address answers to the same body. There is no conservation area here either, and 15 listed entries in the wider area including Efford House. For an ordinary house it means the wash, and whatever you do after it, is not a planning question.
Would you quote the paving on its own?
Yes. Paths, drives and patios go onto the written quote as their own lines and there is no obligation to have the house done at the same time. The ground drains freely here, so a drive can be washed, left an hour and re-sanded on the same visit rather than waiting on the weather. Thomas Hannen comes out, looks at it and prices it, and neither the visit nor the quote is charged.
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Find out what will actually come up
A free site visit in Everton, then a written itemised price with every surface on its own line. Tell us if there is a date to work to.