Exterior cleaning in Holt
Blocked gutters, mossy roofs, green walls and slippery paths around Holt and BH21. We look at the outbuildings too, and put a written price in front of you.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Exterior cleaning at Holt is rarely about dirt. It is what grows on a building that stands under trees, and what falls on it from above. Both are dealt with by a soft wash and a treatment for what is left, and neither is dealt with by turning the pressure up.
Out in Holt, what goes wrong is usually the gutters, the roof or the paths. Water has come over the front of a gutter in heavy rain and left a stain down the wall. The roof has gone dark on the shaded side and the moss is starting to shed into the guttering.
Or the paving and the paths have turned green and slippery and somebody has had a slide on them. We come and walk the whole property, including the outbuildings people forget to mention, look inside the gutters instead of guessing from the drive, and put a written price together for the parts that need doing.
The work
Cleaning buildings that stand under trees
Trees first. Around Holt the woodland and the heath start about where the gardens stop, and that decides the maintenance more than anything about the buildings themselves. Leaf and needles fill the gutters and valleys, which is a gutter clearing job, and the shade keeps roofs and walls damp enough to green over fast.
A roof in permanent shade grows moss and lichen thickly and keeps it, whatever the covering is. Clay and slate hold it on the surface, concrete tile lets it root into the face. Either way it is scraped and cleared dry, the laps and the ridge are checked while somebody is up there, and then it gets a biocide treatment that carries on working for weeks after we leave. A pressure washer forces water up under the lap and takes the face off a concrete tile, and the moss comes back thicker on the rougher surface it leaves.
Render, pebbledash, painted masonry and older brickwork all end up with the same pattern out in Holt: growth heaviest on the shaded elevation and a green band in the first foot or two above the ground where rain splashes back off gravel and beds. That is a soft wash at low pressure with the treatment doing the work, and soft old brick with lime joints gets no pressure at all.
Outbuildings, stores and garden walls. Stables, workshops, garages and the long boundary walls out in Holt all green over on the north side and never get cleaned. They are cheap to include while the kit is already on site and make more difference from the lane than the house does.
How it runs
Washing render, roofs and outbuildings around Holt
Thomas walks the house, the outbuildings and the garden walls with you and chooses a method for each. Rendered and painted walls are soft washed: a gentle, low pressure spray carrying a biocide that kills algae and lichen at the root, given time to work and then rinsed away. Roofs get the same approach and are never blasted. Hard paths and paving can take a pressure washer, with fresh sand brushed into the joints afterwards.
On paper, every surface gets its own line: the method, protection, how we reach it, and where the rinse water and residue end up. With no mains drain nearby, the run-off is steered away from ditches and ponds, and plants are covered or soaked before any biocide touches them.
Cracked render or loose pointing found under the growth is shown to you in a picture with a price, and we wait for your answer.
Washing a building needs nobody's permission. Painting, sealing or putting a new coating on can be a different story, since there are listed buildings in and around Holt, and altering how one looks can need listed building consent from Dorset Council. Before quoting, we tell you which side of that line your job is on.
Cost
Growth, shade and reach: what a clean costs to do
Growth, not area, sets the time: a clean wall rinses in minutes, a lichen-covered one takes far longer. So we price the job, not the square metres.
Shade. A wall or roof under trees stays damp and grows thick algae, moss and lichen. That needs a biocide left to work, sometimes a second dose, where an open sunny wall needs one wash. HSE's biocide rules govern what may be used.
How many buildings. A cottage, a two storey house set back off the lane and a run of outbuildings are three different reaches, and doing them together saves a second trip.
Height. A lance reaches ground floor walls from the ground; a roof slope needs more. The work at height rules settle whether a tower or a platform is used.
Water in and water out. No outside tap near the work, or run-off that must be kept out of a ditch or pond, adds time and kit.
Surfaces. Render, roof, stone, brick and paving each get their own method, and the quote lists them so you can choose.
When you compare, check the method surface by surface, whether a biocide is used or it is a rinse only, and where the waste water goes.
If there is a date
A clean with a date on it
Nobody needs a wash in an emergency, but there is often a deadline: a sale, an inspection, a family occasion, or scaffolding about to come down that could be used to reach the upper walls first. A path gone slippery with algae outside the back door is worth mentioning too.
Give us the date and we will say honestly whether a proper job fits, allowing the days a biocide needs. To pin down a date, phone us; if we are mid-job when you call, we ring back as soon as we can. Cleaning is scheduled Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Where the water and the residue end up here
In town, rinse water goes into a gully and disappears into a surface water sewer. Down the lanes around Holt there is usually no such thing. What comes off a roof or a drive runs to a ditch, a soakaway or straight into the ground, and a good many properties here are on private drainage as well, so a septic tank or a treatment plant may be somewhere under the lawn.
That is not a reason to avoid cleaning anything. It is a reason to plan it before the first hose is turned on rather than halfway through the afternoon.
What we do about it is simple enough. Planting near the wall is sheeted, gullies and drains are covered, run off is directed away from ditches and away from anything you tell us is sensitive, and the debris we scrape off a roof is bagged and leaves with us rather than being washed across the garden.
Products are used at the dilution stated on the label, which is the whole point of using an approved one, and the sensible steps are set out in plain pollution prevention guidance. When you ring, tell us where your soakaway or your tank is and where the ditch runs. It takes a minute and it saves an argument.
Who you are dealing with
How an exterior clean in Holt runs
Houses, outbuildings and walls in Holt, Furzehill, Three Legged Cross and the lanes round Wimborne, in BH21 and Dorset Council's area, are all ones we clean. We set out from Boscombe, 8.6 miles away.
The survey covers outbuildings as well as the house, and it is Thomas Hannen, the owner, who prices each surface. A verified Checkatrade customer left us a 10 out of 10. The site visit and the quote, written out surface by surface, are free. We are Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Holt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Holt?
Most repairs in Holt 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 Holt |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Holt. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Holt, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Holt. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Holt. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Holt
The lane is narrow. Where will the van and kit go?
On the property if there is room, because standing on a Holt lane with no verge blocks it for everybody else. We travel with a tank and hose rather than a wide load, and the hose reaches a fair way from the vehicle, so we can often work the house from the gate. Where the run is too long we ask about an outside tap and a standing spot before the day.
The shaded roof slope keeps going green. Why there?
Because a slope under trees never properly dries. Around Holt that means leaf litter and heath debris sitting on the tiles as well, holding water where moss can root. A scrape and a biocide left to work clears it and slows the return. If the valley between two roofs keeps blocking, that is a gutter clearing job, priced on its own line.
You cannot flush it into the ditch here, can you?
No, and we do not. The ground around Holt holds water instead of taking it away, so anything washed off stays on the surface and finds the lowest point, which out here is a ditch or a field drain. Beds get sheeted, the downpipe gets a filter, and scraped moss is bagged and taken off site. What is left going onto a lawn is rinse water, not treated run off in a watercourse.
What else on the plot is worth doing at the same time?
Outbuildings, the garden walls, and any paving that gets walked on when it is wet. On plots around Holt the walls often carry more growth than the house, because they are shaded, they take splash off the ground and nobody ever looks at them. Doing them on one visit costs less in setting up than a second trip. Thomas Hannen lists each structure on its own line so you can drop any of them.
Does the Green Belt or a listing stop us cleaning?
Neither one does. Green Belt status is about putting up something new, an extension or an outbuilding, and has nothing to say about washing what is already standing. There is no conservation area covering the village, and the 13 listed entries in the parish are a small share of the properties in Holt. If yours is one of them, the constraint falls on method and materials, not on whether the work can happen.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Holt
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Get the gutters and the roof looked at before winter
A free visit, the whole property surveyed and an itemised written quote. Holt, Furzehill and the BH21 lanes.