Exterior cleaning in Lover
Gutter clearing, roof cleaning and low pressure soft washing for walls, patios and drives around Lover, Redlynch and Woodfalls.
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 Lover usually means the shaded side of a building, because out here it is often the only side that needs doing. Before you pay to have a whole roof or a whole house cleaned, it is worth having someone walk round it and tell you which elevations have an actual problem and which are simply out of the sun.
Lover sits on the edge of the forest with trees over most of the plots, and that shapes the work here. Leaf litter and needles fill the gutters and the valleys faster than anywhere on open ground. The pitch that faces away from the sun grows a thick green coat while the other one stays passable.
Shingle and gravel drives grow moss down the middle where the tyres never run. We come out for a free site visit, go round surface by surface, and put a written price together that you can take a line out of. Often the job turns out to be one roof slope and the gutters, not the full package somebody quoted for.
What we actually do
What needs cleaning on these lanes
Gutters and rainwater. With oaks and beeches overhead, leaf mould packs the gutters and valleys here, so the gutters at Lover want clearing ahead of any wall or roof wash.
Plain clay tile on the older cottages, concrete interlocking on the post-war houses and bungalows. A slope that sits in shade and gets little direct sun stays damp most of the year and moss establishes far faster than on an open south elevation. The moss comes out of the laps and off the ridge by hand, dry, and then the slope gets a biocide. We do not use a pressure washer on a roof: it forces water up under the laps, takes the surface off the tile and makes the next growth arrive faster. Where a branch is sitting on the covering we will say so, because trimming it back does more for the roof than the clean does.
The older cottages in Lover have lime in the joints, where a lance would empty them. Brickwork, render and painted masonry on the newer houses, timber outbuildings, stables and garden walls all get a low pressure soft wash and a treatment, never force. A stained north wall is nearly always algae rather than damp coming through.
Gravel, shingle, concrete, block paving and stone patios all want a different setting. Block paving is jet washed and re-sanded, because the joint sand is what holds it together. A patio under trees collects tannin staining from leaves as well as green growth, and those are two different problems needing two different treatments.
Where the water goes. Planting is watered and sheeted, drains and the gully are covered, and vents and fittings are protected before anything runs. A biocide is used at the dilution on the label, only on surfaces it is approved for, and never into a drain. That matters more out in Lover, because where a property is on a septic tank and a soakaway rather than mains drainage there is nowhere for it to go. See the biocides regime the HSE administers and pollution prevention guidance.
How it runs
Cleaning a roof and walls under trees: the order of work
Thomas looks at each surface himself, the roof, the walls, the drive and the patio, and prices the clean. Near trees and in shade, moss and algae grow faster, and a north facing or shaded slope can carry a thick layer.
Moss comes off the roof by hand, never by jet washing tiles, and a biocide goes on after. Render gets a soft wash with biocide, because pressure can take the surface off. Paving gets a rotary clean and is re-sanded.
The quote gives each surface its method, the covers for plants, windows and doors, how we reach it, and where the water and residue end up. The roof and ground work are both on it. Gutters are cleared of the moss afterwards and the debris is bagged and taken with us. At 18.1 miles out, we plan the roof and ground work to run together. If a cracked tile or blown render shows up once it is clean, you get a photo and a price.
Lover is inside the New Forest National Park, its own planning authority. Washing a surface is maintenance, but sealing, rendering or repainting afterwards is a visible change, and there are a small number of listed entries around the hamlet. The Authority's interactive property map shows what your property carries, and we check with you before booking.
Cost
Growth, slope and run-off: pricing a clean
How long a surface takes depends on what is growing on it and how you reach it, not on its size alone.
How much growth. A roof in the shade of trees builds up thick moss. Scraping it off by hand is slow, and the thicker it is, the longer it takes. Algae on a north facing wall comes off quicker but needs the biocide to stop it coming back.
Reaching it. A low roof off a pole or roof ladder is one thing. A chalet with dormers in a shaded slope, or a two storey roof, needs a tower, and the work at height rules decide which. A stable block or outbuilding at the end of a gravel track adds carrying.
Treatment. A rinse looks clean for a season. A biocide used under the biocides regime the HSE administers kills the spores. Ask whether treatment is included.
Where the run-off goes. Near streams, ponds and ditches, dirty water and biocide must not run straight into them. Collecting or diverting it takes time and is planned.
Paving. Re-sanding joints after cleaning is a real cost on a long drive.
Comparing quotes. Ask what each surface gets, whether treatment or only a rinse is in the price, and where the run-off goes.
If there is a date
A date to meet: a sale, a letting or an inspection
Cleaning is rarely an emergency, but there is often a deadline: a sale, a letting inspection, or scaffold about to come down. Phone and tell us the date, and Thomas will be honest about whether the job can be done well in the time.
A shaded slope sprayed with biocide takes weeks to look right, because the dead growth has to weather off, so the earlier you call the better it will look on the day. The one thing that can cause damage is moss dropping into the gutters and blocking them, so say if they are overflowing. Cleaning jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If no one picks up, we will ring you back as soon as we can.
The one local thing
The slope that never sees the sun is the slope that grows
With woodland on most boundaries, a good number of the roofs and walls around Lover spend much of the year in shade. A surface in direct sun dries within an hour of the rain stopping.
A shaded one under trees can stay damp for days at a stretch through the winter, and damp is the only thing moss, algae and lichen genuinely need. It is why the two halves of one roof can look like they belong to different houses, and why a wall that faces the wood goes green while the one facing the lane does not.
The useful part is that it makes the job smaller, not bigger. If only one slope and one elevation have a problem, that is what should be on the quote, and a firm pricing the whole building without looking at which side is which is not doing you a favour.
What you should expect is a shorter interval on the shaded side than the sunny one, so the two get out of step and eventually want doing separately. And before booking a second clean on a slope that greened up again quickly, look at what is overhanging it. Getting light and air back onto a pitch does more than any amount of washing, and it costs less.
Who you are dealing with
The firm washing your roof and walls
We work out of a base in Boscombe, 18.1 miles from Lover, and clean roofs and walls there and in Redlynch, Morgan's Vale, Woodfalls, Downton and across SP5. Planning is the National Park Authority's business, and Wiltshire Council is the council.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company 15471719, is owned by Thomas Hannen, who looks at every surface before pricing. A customer has given us a verified 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You are not charged for the look round, and the quote comes itemised and in writing at no cost. Before you book a visit in Lover, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lover?
Most repairs in Lover 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 Lover |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Lover. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Lover, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lover. 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 Lover
The north east wall is green and the front is not. Why?
Shade explains it. A north east wall only catches early morning sun in summer, and under trees it can get almost none, so it never dries properly between spells of rain. Algae needs only damp and shade. It is not damp coming through from inside, and washing will not cure a wall that is genuinely wet, so we look at the gutter above it and the ground level below before assuming it is only growth.
Many cottages here look Victorian. Does age change the wash?
It changes the pressure and the product. The older cottages around Lover have solid walls with lime mortar that have to dry outward. A jet drives water past the face and into the wall, and takes the soft mortar out of the joint on its way. We work at low pressure, apply a biocide and let it do the job over the following weeks, and keep it off bare timber.
We are inside the National Park. Does that mean forms?
Not for a clean: no conservation area covers Lover itself and there are only 8 listed entries nearby, and the National Park's interest is in how things look once they change, not in a surface being washed back to its own colour. Where it does apply is afterwards. A coating, a seal or a different colour on render is a visible change, and the Park would want asking before that goes on.
Can you do just the shaded side of the roof?
Yes, and that is usually what we quote for. On a plot ringed by Forest oak only the slope that stays wet carries the moss, so washing a pitch that is already clean adds cost and adds nothing else. We price by elevation, so you can have the shaded pitch and the gutters and leave the rest. If the sunny side has moss too, something is holding water on it and we would want to know what.
The ground never soaks anything away. Where do the washings go?
Into bags and off site, as far as the solids are concerned. The ground around Lover has impeded drainage, so what we put on the roof does not vanish into the lawn, it works its way to the lowest corner. Beds get sheeted, the downpipe gets a filter, and we keep everything clear of ditches, because the run here eventually feeds towards the Solent. Rinse water on grass is fine; moss and silt are not.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Lover
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Tell us which side of the house has the problem and we will come and look at it.