Exterior cleaning in Matchams
Roofs, cladding, render, gutters, drives and patios around Matchams and BH24. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Out at Matchams the question is almost never whether a surface can be cleaned. It is how soon it goes green again. Buildings here sit in among conifer plantation and heath, the local slopes fall away to the north east, and a surface that gets no direct sun stays damp most of the year. So the honest answer is that a rinse on its own is money wasted here, and a proper biocide treatment is the part that buys you time.
The calls come in for a handful of reasons. A roof has gone dark and mossy on the shaded pitch. Gutters are overflowing and there is a stripe down the wall where they have been running over. A drive or a hardstanding has turned green and slippery through winter. Timber cladding or render on a chalet has gone black on one side and looks nothing like the other. Or somebody is putting a property up for sale and wants it looking cared for by a set date.
What we do about it starts with a survey of the surface rather than a look at the dirt. A concrete tile, a piece of painted timber, a rendered gable and a block paved drive all want different pressure, and two of them want almost none. Then we tell you what the growth actually is, whether it needs treating or only washing, and roughly how long it should stay off on your plot. That comes back to you as a written itemised price after a free site visit.
The work
The cleaning we get asked for out here
Roof cleaning, and knowing when not to. Moss sits in the channel of the tile and packs into the lap where one course overlaps the next, and packed laps push water sideways instead of down the slope. That is the reason to clear it, not the look. It comes off dry with a scrape and a brush, then a biocide goes on through a soft wash nozzle at low pressure. We do not jet wash a tiled roof. The force takes the cement fines off a concrete tile and leaves it porous, so the regrowth is faster, and it lifts mortar bedded ridge tiles that were only just holding on.
There is a lot of timber out here, on chalets, park homes and the workshops behind the houses, and cladding is the surface people most often ruin with a pressure washer. A lance raises the grain, forces water behind the boards and blows the sealant out of the panel seams on a park home. All of it gets a soft wash, a brush where the growth is heavy and a rinse at garden hose pressure. Slopes and elevations here face north east, and a wall that sees no sun greens over while the sunny side of the same house stays clean. Green is algae and comes off. Black spot is lichen, rooted in, and it needs treatment and a few weeks.
Gutters, and where the water goes. Conifers shed needles all year rather than in one autumn, and needle litter mats down into a felt that holds water against the fascia. Clearing is by hand or vacuum, every outlet and downpipe is run through to prove it takes water, and valleys are cleared at the same time. Parking out here is often gravel or tarmac rather than block paving: tarmac wants a wide fan and a light touch or it goes patchy. Before anything starts, planting is sheeted and watered down and every gully is covered.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised: method for each surface, protection, access and where the water and residue go, each on its own line. Nothing is left open overnight and what comes off leaves with us. Washing a surface is maintenance, so there is nothing to apply for. There is no conservation area over Matchams and nothing listed here, so no consent question is hiding behind the work either. Painting or rendering a wall afterwards is a different matter, and the Planning Portal sets out where external wall work needs permission. Dorset Council is the authority for this address.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
No rate per square metre: the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. A single storey chalet on a wooded plot is reach pole work, a two storey house behind trees means finding level ground for a tower, and a run of stables is a different setup again. The work at height rules decide which. The surface sets the method, and getting it wrong takes the surface off with the dirt. Comparing quotes, ask what method each surface gets, whether a treatment is included or just a rinse, 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 often has a date on it: a sale, a letting inspection, scaffolding coming down. Tell us the date and we will say honestly whether it can be done properly by then. Matchams is about fifteen minutes from us, so coming to look first is easy. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Under the pines, and what that costs you
The thing that decides how often a building here needs cleaning is not the building. It is the shade. Matchams sits in among conifer plantation and open heath, and the local ground falls away to the north east, so a great many roofs and gables here get no direct sun on them at all through the winter half of the year. A surface that never dries out is a surface that stays colonised.
Moss holds water in the tile channel, algae films over render within weeks of being rinsed, and lichen gets its roots into anything with an open texture. On top of that, conifers shed needles, resin and small debris all year round rather than in one tidy autumn, so the gutters, valleys and flat roof outlets here fill up two or three times as fast as they do on an open plot a mile away.
Two things follow, and both are worth money to you. First, do not buy a rinse. Water alone takes off the green you can see and leaves the spores in the surface, and under trees that grows back within a season. Pay for the biocide treatment instead and let it work, and ask for any second visit to be written on the quote rather than assumed. Second, put the gutters on a shorter cycle than the standard advice: once in late autumn is not enough where the litter never stops falling, so late autumn and again in spring is the sensible pattern.
Cutting back the limbs that actually overhang the roof does more for the problem than any product, and we will say so. Where run off has to go somewhere, the ground here is free draining sand next to protected heath, so gullies and drains get covered and planting is sheeted and watered down first. That is ordinary practice under the HSE guidance on biocides, not an extra.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Matchams, Hurn Forest and the lanes towards St Leonards and Avon on BH24, out to Ringwood, Ashley Heath and West Parley, and Dorset Council is the planning authority for this address. 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
Matchams questions we get asked
The back of the roof never dries out. Why only that side?
Because the local aspect at Matchams is north east, and a slope facing that way gets no direct sun from one month to the next. Moss needs damp more than it needs anything else, so it establishes on the shaded pitch well before the open side shows a green tinge. That is why we usually treat one elevation heavily and give the sunny pitch a lighter pass rather than doing both the same.
Is there any conservation area or listed status to worry about?
None at Matchams. There is no conservation area over it and no listed entries at all, which is unusual on this patch. Washing and treating the outside of a building counts as maintenance rather than development in any case, so nothing needs an application. It also means the colour and finish of whatever you replace afterwards, a fascia or a soffit, is your choice and not something Dorset planners will comment on.
Can you clean a timber chalet or a park home?
We can, and it is a different job to a brick house. Timber and plastic panels score and dent under a lance, so it is a soft wash by hand and a rinse. Roof sheets on a chalet are thin and standing on them is out, so the covering is done off a tower or a pole. Small bore guttering on a park home blocks with pine litter far faster than a house gutter does.
Everything soaks straight into the sand here. Is that a problem?
It is only a problem for what goes into it. The ground at Matchams is freely draining sand, so wash water disappears within a few feet of where it lands instead of finding a gully. Fine for a rinse, not fine for concentrated product, so we mix to the label, keep it off the planting and never tip a surplus onto open ground. The heath beside you sits on the same sand.
The wind here comes off open ground. Does that matter?
It matters for when we work rather than whether we can. The most exposed elevation at Matchams faces south west, so driven rain lands on that wall and keeps it wet, while the north east pitch stays damp for its own reasons. Spraying a treatment into a gusting south westerly wastes most of it and puts the rest where nobody wants it, so that wall gets done on a still morning.
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Tell us the address and what has gone green. We come out, look at the surface and put an itemised price in writing. No charge for either.