Exterior cleaning in Hyde
Mossy roofs, blocked gutters, green walls and slippery paths around Hyde and SP6. Cleaned at the pressure the building can take, priced in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
At Hyde the first question is not how to clean it but whether it should be cleaned at all. Plenty of what we are asked to look at here is old fabric that a pressure washer would ruin in an afternoon, and the honest answer is sometimes a treatment, a brush and leaving well alone.
The calls tend to be one of three. The roof has gone thick with moss and lichen on the shaded slope and lumps of it are ending up in the gutter. The gutters have overflowed in a downpour and left a dark stripe down a wall that will not dry out.
Or the paths, the yard and the patio have gone green and are slippery enough to be a worry. We come out, walk round the whole place with you, get up and look inside the guttering instead of guessing, and then write down what needs doing, what it will take and what we would leave alone.
The work
What we clean on a Hyde property
Roofs, and mostly lichen rather than dirt. Out on this side of the Forest the shaded pitches carry heavy moss and the sunnier ones carry lichen, the flat grey and yellow crusts that will not brush off. Clay tile and slate hold growth on the surface. Concrete tile lets it root into the face. The method is the same either way: lift the bulk off dry, clear what has washed into the laps and the valley, then a biocide treatment that keeps working after we have gone. No pressure washer goes near any of it. On slate the force lifts a slate off its nail, on tile it drives water back under the lap, and on any mortar bedded ridge it takes the bedding out and turns a clean into a roof repair.
Leaf and needle litter is the normal load in the gutters here and it does not stay in the gutter. It washes to the outlet, packs into the top of the downpipe and then the whole run backs up in the first proper storm. Clearing means the material comes out and leaves with us, then water goes through the run to prove it takes it. Where the rainwater goods are metal rather than plastic, a clean is also the moment to see what condition the paint is in.
Render and painted masonry get a soft wash at low pressure with an approved product doing the work and the water only rinsing. Green algae sits heaviest on the shaded elevation and in the splash zone at the bottom of a wall. Black spot is the one that resists scrubbing and only ever comes off chemically. Where a wall has been painted with something modern and it is already flaking, cleaning will lift more of it, and that is better said before we start.
Paths, yards and paving. Stone and concrete slabs, brick paths, block paving and concrete yards. The winter film that makes a path treacherous lifts with a wide fan nozzle and much less force than people expect, followed by a treatment so it does not return by spring. Block paving is re-sanded with kiln dried sand once it has dried. Old brick paving and worn stone get the gentlest setting we have, because the arris on an old brick only comes off once.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Washing a surface is maintenance and needs no consent. Hyde is another matter once you want to change how something looks, because the village sits inside the New Forest National Park, the Western Escarpment conservation area takes in ground here, and there are twenty-one listed entries in the area. Painting, sealing or re-coating can need consent where a clean does not, and the National Park Authority's interactive property map will tell you what covers your address before you commit to anything.
The quote is itemised: the method for each surface, protection, access and where the water and residue go, each on its own line.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
No rate per square metre: the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two, depending what is growing on it. A cottage tucked under trees, an outbuilding at the end of a yard and a two storey house set back behind a wall are three different reaches, and most of the kit is carried. Ground level off a lance is one thing, a roof slope another, and work at height rules decide which.
Comparing quotes. Ask what method each surface gets, whether treatment is included or only a rinse, whether a second visit is part of it, and where the run off goes.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. It is not emergency work, but it usually has a date on it: a sale, an inspection, scaffolding coming down. Tell us the date and we will say honestly if it can be done properly. Hyde is a longer run for us than most of our work, so give us more notice on a fixed date. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Old walls, and the cleaning that does more harm than good
Hyde has a lot of old fabric and it sits in a conservation area within the National Park, where appearance is controlled and like for like maintenance is treated very differently from a change of material. That matters for cleaning in two ways. The first is technical. Soft handmade brick, lime mortar, limewash and old render are all softer than the water pressure a domestic machine puts out.
Blast them and you take the fired face off the brick, the mortar out of the joint and the limewash off the wall, and what you are left with holds water where it used to shed it. The damage is permanent and it is the sort of thing that shows up in a survey years later.
The second is what you do instead. On old fabric the sensible job is patience: a gentle treatment, soft brushes, hand work at the joints and repeat visits rather than more force. Some growth, particularly lichen on old stone and tile, is better left where it is. And be careful about what goes on afterwards.
A modern sealer or a plastic paint over a wall built to breathe traps moisture inside it, and on a listed building or in a conservation area it can also be a change of appearance that needs consent. The National Park sets out what it expects in its heritage and conservation guidance, and we would rather point you at it than quote you for something you should not have done.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Hyde, Fordingbridge, Godshill and the SP6 villages along the western side of the Forest. The visit takes in the outbuildings and the boundary walls as well as the house, and the written quote splits the price surface by surface.
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
Hyde questions we get asked
Would a change of colour on the render need permission?
In the Western Escarpment area it can. Appearance is controlled, so like for like is maintenance while a different colour or a different material counts as a change, and the National Park takes an interest in anything visible from the lanes. Washing render back to the colour it already is falls on the safe side of that line. If you want a different shade afterwards, ask them before we start rather than after.
The yard floods after heavy rain. Does that affect the work?
It affects where the washings go. Surface water risk around Hyde is high and Huckles Brook is only a few hundred metres off, so anything running off hard standing reaches a watercourse quickly instead of soaking in. We work up from the lowest point, keep the flow away from gullies and ditches, and bag the solids. On a day when the ground is already saturated we would rather move the paving work than push on with it.
Do gutter guards work under Forest oaks?
Not as well as people hope. The oak and beech leaf around Hyde is big enough for a guard to catch, but the twigs and blossom that come first go straight through and build up underneath where you cannot reach. A guard turns a job you can do off a ladder into one where the guard has to come off first. We would rather clear and flush the run twice a year and leave the gutter open.
Ours is one of the listed cottages. What changes?
The method, and the order things happen in. There are 21 listed entries around Hyde, and on those the finish is usually soft and porous, so a lance takes the surface with it and a strong biocide can stain what is left. We wash at the lowest pressure that shifts the growth, try it out of sight first, and keep water off timber and glazing bars. Consent covers altering a building, not cleaning one.
What can I check myself before you drive out here?
Stand back at the gate and look along the gutter line for a sag or a green streak running down the wall under a joint, then look at the walls that face away from the sun, which stay damp longest around Hyde. Photograph anything you cannot see properly. It does not replace the visit, since Thomas Hannen comes and looks before pricing, but it tells us whether to bring a tower.
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Have the outside looked at by someone who will say no
A free site visit, the whole property surveyed and an itemised written quote. Hyde, Fordingbridge and the SP6 villages.