Exterior cleaning in Norton
Roof, render, gutter, drive and glass cleaning across Norton, Yarmouth and the west of the Island. Treated to last in salt air, not just rinsed.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two miles from open water, the film on a Norton wall or window is salt as much as it is dirt, and salt holds damp against the surface between showers. That is why growth comes back here faster than inland and why the treatment, not the pressure, is the part of the job that decides how long it stays clean.
Most people ring us here after a winter rather than after a storm. The render has gone green on the shaded side, the drive has turned slippery, the glass has a haze on it that will not wipe off, and the gutters have taken a season of leaves and gale-blown rubbish. Some of it is a holiday let or a second home that needs to look right before the season starts.
It is all maintenance and none of it is urgent, which means you have time to have it done properly. We walk the property, tell you which surfaces will hold up to a wash and which want treating and leaving, and put a price against each one before anything is booked.
The work
What a Solent-side property actually needs doing
Roofs, and a lot of them at single storey. A third of the housing in Norton is bungalow, which changes the job before it starts: twice the roof area for the same floor area, far more ridge and verge per house, and almost all of it reachable from the ground or off a tower rather than needing a platform up a gable. On concrete interlocking tile we scrape the laps and the ridge, clear the valley and treat the slope. On the older slate and clay we do less and treat more. There is no pressure washing of a roof here in any case, because the force lifts a slate off its nail and takes the face off a tile.
Render and paint on the seaward side. The elevation that faces the water is always the one that needs doing, and it is usually painted render or masonry paint. Norton sits a couple of kilometres from the coast, and salt sits in that paint film and pulls moisture back into it every time the humidity climbs, so algae and black lichen establish on it while the sheltered elevation still looks fresh. Low pressure, a treatment given time to work, and a rinse in clean fresh water at the end so no salt is left behind. Roughly a quarter of the housing here predates 1919, and old brick in lime mortar, rubble stone and painted timber all want the gentlest method that shifts the growth. We test a panel out of sight, keep the pressure off, and if a wall has soft joints or flaking paint we would rather tell you before we start than wash the mortar out and hand you a repointing job.
Blown leaf, salt stiffened moss and grit off the road silt a gutter up faster in an exposed position than in a sheltered one. We clear the run, flush every downpipe, check the outlet takes water and photograph anything that has already rotted behind. On a bungalow the whole run is within easy reach, so it is a short job and worth doing yearly. Block paving, concrete and stone paving all go slippery in a damp winter, and that matters more on a single storey property where the path is the front door. Block paving is washed under controlled pressure and then re-sanded, because the wash takes the jointing sand out with the black spot. We will give you a straight answer on whether a seal is worth paying for on your paving or whether it will just lock the damp in.
Salt haze on glass does not come off with a rinse. It wants a proper wash and pure water, and it is worth doing at the same time as the render so the whole elevation matches rather than leaving one clean patch in a grey wall. The same goes for the frames and the conservatory, which are the part of the elevation you look at from inside and the part that shows a half done job soonest.
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. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on. A clean is maintenance and needs nobody's consent. There is no conservation area over Norton, though there are twelve listed entries around it. The step that does need checking is painting or coating a wall that has never been painted, which is a planning question rather than a decorating one. Isle of Wight Council is the authority, and the Planning Portal on external walls sets out where the line falls.
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 bungalow you can walk a reach pole all the way round, a two storey rendered house facing the water and a run of old boundary wall are three different jobs before anyone turns a tap on. The work at height rules decide which. The surface sets the method, and getting it wrong takes the finish 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 or a letting inspection. Getting to the Island costs a crossing at each end of the day, so Norton is booked as a whole day, not a two hour slot, which is worth knowing if you are working to a date. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Salt is why it comes back, and what to do about that
Norton sits a little over two kilometres from open water at the narrow end of the Solent, and that puts salt on every outside surface you own. Salt is hygroscopic, which is a long word for a simple nuisance: it pulls moisture out of the air and holds it against the render, the glass and the paving long after the rain has stopped.
Algae, lichen and black spot need damp more than they need anything else, so a salted surface stays colonised where an inland one dries out and starves them. It is also why the film on your windows smears rather than wipes, and why the north and east elevations here green over in a single season.
Two practical things follow, and they change what you should buy. First, a rinse is close to worthless here. If nothing kills the spores in the surface, the growth is visible again within months, so on a coastal property the biocide is the job and the wash is the preparation. The HSE publishes which products are approved for this and the label sets out how they may be used, which is not the sort of thing a man with a trailer and a petrol washer tends to worry about.
Second, timing. Cleaning in the autumn means the work takes a winter of driven salt spray before you get to look at it. Cleaning in late spring, once the gales have finished, gets you the whole season out of it. If you are on the seaward side we will usually suggest waiting a few weeks rather than take the booking now.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Norton, Yarmouth, Freshwater and Totland and the west of the Island, and PO41 is a planned day rather than a passing call. 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
Norton questions we get asked
A quarter of Norton predates 1919. What does that change?
It changes the pressure and the chemistry. 26.0% of the housing here was built before 1919 and 23.2% before 1900, so you are dealing with solid walls, lime pointing and brick that has to breathe. A lance strips the fired face off that brick and drives water into a wall with no cavity to stop it. We soft wash, use a biocide, and stay off anything that will not take it.
You are on the mainland. How does a job on Wight work?
It works around the crossing, which means we come to the Island for a full day rather than an hour. That is why a visit at Norton wants booking with some notice, and why we would rather look at everything in one go, covering and gutters and render and paving, than come back twice. Thomas Hannen prices it himself on the day and neither the visit nor the written quote is charged for.
Most of the road is bungalows. Do you still need a tower?
Often not. Bungalows are 34.6% of Norton, more of them than any other type, and on a low roof the covering and the gutter can both be worked from ground level with poles. No tower, no ladder leaning on a plastic gutter, nothing standing in the border. Where a rear extension or a conservatory gets in the way we bring a light tower for that section and take it down the same day.
Which elevation goes first on a house facing the Solent?
The south west facing wall, and it is not close. That is the exposed side at Norton, 2.2km from the water, so it takes the salt and the driven rain while the sheltered walls stay presentable for far longer. The local slopes run east north east as well, which puts the back pitch in shade and lets moss sit. Do the south west wall first and the shaded pitch after it.
Can it be done between changeovers at a holiday let?
That is how a lot of the Island work gets scheduled. A wash down of the render and the paving fits into a changeover gap if the weather holds. A roof treatment does not, because it has to be left on and the growth clears gradually over the weeks that follow. So the visible surfaces go in the gap and the covering goes in during a week when nobody is booked.
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Get the whole property priced in one visit
Free site visit across PO41. Every surface priced separately, so you can take the roof and the render now and leave the paving until spring.