Exterior cleaning in Lymington

Painted render and masonry. A great deal of the older town is rendered and painted, and paint is the reason force is the wrong tool. A soft wash at low pressure with a treatment lifts the algae and the salt film without taking the paint with it, which is what a lance does in about four seconds. Brickwork, stone plinths, pebbledash on the post-war houses and the render on the eighties estates all take the same low pressure approach. Where the surface is chalky to the touch, that is the paint itself breaking down and a clean will not fix it, so we will say so instead of washing it and handing you a bill.

Concrete interlocking and plain tile cover most of the housing, with slate on some of the older roofs. The moss comes out of the laps and off the ridge by hand, the valley and the gutter get cleared, and a biocide goes on afterwards to deal with the algae and lichen that a scrape cannot reach. No pressure washing on a roof, because it drives water under the laps and takes the surface off the tile. Close to a quarter of the town is terraced, and on a terrace we clean the full width of your roof rather than stopping at an invisible line, which is not always what a quote assumes.

Block paving, brick paving, concrete and stone patios, and the shared parking courts behind a lot of the flats. Block paving is jet washed and then re-sanded, because leaving the joints empty is how the blocks start to move. Paths and steps near a front door are the ones to do first: green film on a wet flag is the most likely thing on the property to put somebody down.

Gutters, downpipes and hoppers get cleared and the water checked all the way to a drain instead of the wall. Where the rainwater goods are cast iron we look at the joints and the back of the hopper while we are up there, because a slow leak behind a downpipe stains render for years before anybody notices.

Before any water runs. Planting is watered and sheeted, the gully and every open drain is covered, and vents, lights and alarm boxes are protected. Biocides are used at the dilution on the label and only on surfaces they are approved for, and nothing goes into a drain. That is what the biocides regime the HSE administers and pollution prevention guidance require, and it matters here because the surface water does not have far to travel. We would talk you out of washing painted render that has already failed, out of sealing a parking court you do not own, and out of cleaning half a shared elevation, which always looks worse than leaving all of it alone.

No rate per square metre: the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two, depending what is growing on it. A High Street frontage where the pavement is the only place to stand, a terraced cottage you can only reach through next door's garden, and a detached house on a Pennington estate with room all round are three different mornings. 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, and where the run off goes.

We cover Lymington and Pennington, out through Boldre, Walhampton and Portmore, and across the SO41 postcodes. 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.