Exterior cleaning in Merley
Roofs, render, gutters, drives and patios across Merley and BH21. 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.
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If your roof in Merley has gone green and so has every roof in the road, nothing has gone wrong. Almost the whole of Merley was built in one push, so the tiles are the same age, they have worn the same way, and they are greening over on the same timetable.
The fix is a scrape and a low pressure soft wash with a biocide treatment behind it, not a pressure wash. A lance on a concrete tile of this age does real damage, and the mortar bedded ridge on top of it is already brittle.
On a Merley house the roof, the drive, a gable and the gutters give the signs that a clean is due. The shaded pitch of the roof has gone dark and the moss is now visible in the gutter. The block paved drive has weeds through the joints and a black band where the cars sit. A rendered or painted gable has greened on one side of the house and not the other. Or the gutters are running over and there is a stain down the wall below the joint.
We deal with all four, and we deal with them in an order that saves you money. The roof comes first, the gutters get cleared and proved afterwards, and the drive and patio go last, because everything that comes off the roof lands on the ground. The free site visit is a proper survey of each surface, not a glance from the pavement, and every surface is priced as its own line on a written itemised quote, so you can drop one if you would rather do it next year.
The work
What a Merley house usually needs doing
The main roof comes first. The great bulk of Merley is detached houses and bungalows carrying concrete interlocking tile, with the ridge and often the verge bedded in mortar. Three quarters of the housing went up between 1945 and 1982, half of it in the 1970s and early 1980s, so these roofs are all much the same age.
The surface slurry has weathered off and the tile underneath is open and porous, which is what moss wants: it fills the channel and packs into the lap, and a packed lap pushes water sideways under the covering. We scrape and brush the bulk off dry, then soft wash at low pressure through a wide nozzle and treat with a biocide so the spores in the surface die, not only the green on top. On a bungalow, and nearly a third of the houses in Merley are bungalows, that is a big roof area for a small footprint and most of it is reachable from the ground.
Mortar of that age crumbles, so before any water goes on we look along the ridge and down the verge for bedding that has cracked or gone hollow. Cleaning around loose mortar is one thing and washing it out is another. If a ridge is rocking we stop and tell you, because that is a roofing repair on a separate quote. On the rendered and pebbledashed gables, porches and garage walls, green film is algae and washes off, black spot is lichen rooted in and wants a treatment and a few weeks, and chalky masonry paint strips off in sheets under a lance, so a test patch goes out of sight first.
Drives, gutters and what sits underneath. Most of the original drives in Merley have been block paved. A rotary surface cleaner lifts the growth evenly, but the wash takes the kiln dried sand out of every joint with the weed, so it is re-sanded before anyone drives on it, or the blocks rock, spread and sink at the edges. A roof clean sends water, moss and treatment down onto whatever sits below, so borders against the wall are sheeted and watered down, and the gully at the bottom of the drive is covered. A lot of what looks like a roof leak is a gutter running over, and that is a gutter clearing job. The white plastic fascia and soffit comes back up with a soft wash, and conservatory roofs and solar panels are done while the poles are up.
How it runs
Cleaning roofs, walls and drives, surface by surface
Thomas sees the house in person and prices it himself. He looks at each surface in turn, because on a Merley house that usually means concrete roof tiles, painted render or brick, uPVC fascias and a block paved drive, and each needs a different method. The quote itemises the method for each surface, protection, access, any biocide treatment, and where the water and residue go.
With a drive and an outside tap at most houses in Merley, the equipment stays on your property and off the road. Windows, doors and plants are protected, moss off the roof is bagged rather than washed into the gutters, and the drive and paths are rinsed down at the end. If cleaning shows up a cracked tile, blown render or failed pointing, you get a photo and a price and the choice is yours.
Cleaning is maintenance, and there is nothing to apply for. Merley's housing stands outside both conservation areas in the ward, at Oakley Lane and Canford Magna, and its listed entries are on the Canford School estate. On a listed building, talk to the council before any chemical or pressure clean. BCP Council's pages cover the designations, and BCP Council is the authority.
Cost
Surface, height and treatment decide a cleaning price
The same area can be quick or slow depending on what it is made of, so we don't price exterior cleaning by the square metre.
The surface. Concrete tiles take a soft wash and a biocide. Block paving is pressure cleaned, then re-sanded. Painted render and older brick need low pressure, because too much takes the finish off with the dirt.
Height. A bungalow roof can often be reached from a tower or with a reach pole from the ground. A house with a lean-to conservatory at the back needs another route to the same gutter. The work at height rules decide which.
Treatment or rinse. A biocide kills moss and algae at the root and keeps them off for longer; a rinse alone looks good for a season. Biocides are regulated, and we use products authorised for the purpose, as directed.
Run off. Wash water and residue can't go down a surface water drain, because those lead to watercourses. Catching and disposing of it properly is part of the price, and pollution prevention guidance sets out why.
Repairs spotted. Moss often hides cracked tiles or open joints. Those are priced separately.
When comparing, ask what method each surface gets, whether a treatment is included or only a rinse, and where the run off goes.
If there is a date
A sale, a letting check or a deadline coming up
Exterior cleaning is rarely urgent, but it often has a date on it: a house going on the market, a tenancy check, or a scaffold that is coming down and could be used first. Ring and tell us the date.
We will say honestly whether it can be done properly by then, and what can wait. If a path or drive has turned slippery with algae, sweep it and put grit down in the meantime rather than reaching for a pressure washer. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody picks up, we call back as soon as we are down off the job.
Worth knowing
One estate, one age, one set of problems
Roughly three quarters of the housing in Merley went up between the war and the early eighties, and nearly half of the whole place in the seventies and early eighties alone. That is unusual even around here, and it changes what to expect from your own house. Those roofs were tiled within a few years of each other with the same generation of concrete interlocking tile, bedded at the ridge and verge in the same sand and cement.
Concrete tiles of that era were made with a coloured slurry on the face, and after five decades of weather that slurry has largely gone. What is left is an open surface that holds water, which is why moss establishes so readily on one Merley roof and so readily on the one next door. The bedding mortar has aged on the same clock. It is brittle, often cracked along its length, and it will not survive a pressure lance being run along it.
Useful advice comes out of that. The first is that you can see your own future from the pavement: whatever the roofs three doors down are doing, yours is on the same schedule, so it is worth booking the clean and any edge repair together while the access is already paid for. The second is to be sceptical of anyone offering to spray a coating or a paint onto the tiles after cleaning. It is sold as a seal and it is common on estates of exactly this age.
On a porous fifty year old tile it traps moisture in the tile, it does nothing at all for the mortar that is actually failing, and it makes any future repair harder because a matched replacement tile no longer matches. We do not offer it. We clean the roof, treat it under the HSE guidance on biocides, tell you plainly what the edges need, and leave the tile as a tile.
Who you are dealing with
Before anyone cleans your house, know who they are
The drive from our base in Boscombe to Merley is 6.6 miles. We cover houses here, in Canford Magna and Bearwood, and out to Wimborne Minster, Broadstone and Corfe Mullen, with BCP Council as the authority.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and each clean is priced surface by surface by its owner, Thomas Hannen. A verified customer's Checkatrade score for us is 10 out of 10. The visit is free, and you get an itemised written quote at no cost. Before you book a visit in Merley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Merley?
Most repairs in Merley 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 Merley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Merley. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | The Merley housing estates are outside any conservation area. Oakley Lane and Canford Magna conservation areas are nearby in the same ward. Check your address. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Merley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Merley. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Merley
Every roof in the road looks the same. Is mine worse?
Probably not, and that is the point. 77.0% of Merley went up between 1945 and 1982, and 49.8% of it in the 1970s and early 1980s, so the whole road carries the same age of tile and the same bedding. The back slopes face north east together and they green over together. When we quote we say plainly whether yours is ahead of the street or level with it.
Half the houses here are detached. Does that make access easier?
Usually: detached houses are 49.0% of Merley and bungalows another 29.6%, so there is normally a side gate wide enough to take a tower through and hard standing to stand it on. That keeps us off the borders and off the neighbour's land, which matters because the gaps between plots on these estates are tight. Where the gate is too narrow we work the far elevation off poles from the front.
Canford School is round the corner. Does that restrict anything?
Not for an ordinary house: the twenty six listed entries in this area are concentrated on the Canford School estate, John of Gaunt's Kitchen among them, and a listing controls its own building rather than the properties nearby. The Merley estates also sit outside a conservation area, though the Oakley Lane and Canford Magna conservation areas are in the same ward. Work on something inside the school grounds is a different conversation, and one that starts with the council.
Will washing the roof loosen ridge tiles that old?
It can, and on a covering of this age it mostly shows up what was already loose. Mortar bedded ridges from the 1970s go hollow underneath, and a lance held close will lift one clean off. We keep the pressure down and work across the ridge rather than driving water up under it. If a ridge rocks when we touch it we stop and say so, because that is a repair and not a clean.
Can you clean the block paving and put the sand back?
We can. Merley sits on freely draining ground and the paving is laid on a sand bed over it, so the joints wash out easily and the blocks start to rock once they are empty. After the clean we let the surface dry properly, then brush kiln dried sand back into every joint. On a sloping drive that goes in over two passes so the sand beds down instead of running off.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Merley
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Tell us the address and which surface has gone green. We come out, look at it and put an itemised price in writing. No charge for either.