Exterior cleaning in Spetisbury
Roofs, render, gutters, walls and paving cleaned at the pressure each surface can actually take, front and back priced separately.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Exterior cleaning in Spetisbury means two different problems with two different answers. Green on the roof, the paving and the shaded walls is living growth and wants a soft wash, a biocide and time. The grey film on the road frontage is traffic dirt, and that wants a detergent and a proper rinse. Treating one as though it were the other is why people end up disappointed.
The need for a clean in Spetisbury is usually something that has got slowly worse. The roof has gone dark on the side away from the sun. The gutter on the road side is running over and streaking the wall under it. The white paintwork and the render facing the road have gone a flat grey that will not wash off with a hose. Or the path down the garden has turned genuinely slippery through winter.
We look at each surface on its own before quoting anything. What is on it, what it is made of, which way it faces, and whether the paint, the render or the mortar underneath will stand being cleaned at all. Some of it comes off in an hour. Some of it wants treating and then leaving to die back. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, and the method goes on the quote next to each line so you can compare it with anyone else's properly.
The work
The surfaces that need cleaning along the village
The road frontage collects something different. The village strings along the main road, and everything facing it collects what the traffic leaves: film, brake and tyre dust and winter grit spray, which put a grey cast on render, on painted masonry and on white fascia and downpipes that no amount of biocide will shift, because none of it is alive.
That is a detergent, a soft wash and a clean water rinse. It also means the front of a house and the back of the same house are two separate lines on the quote, and often two different intervals.
Old walls and roofs. Along the street it is clay plain tile and slate over lime pointed brick and flint, and behind it concrete interlocking tile over modern render. Old walls are pointed softer than the material they hold together, so pressure finds the joint first and quietly strips it. Roofs are a dry scrape and a brush with the moss lifted out of the lap and off the ridge, then a low pressure soft wash through a wide nozzle with an approved biocide behind it to kill the spore and slow the regrowth, and slate and old plain tile never see a lance.
Mature trees along the river and the old railway line fill the gutters here with leaf litter as well as roof moss, so a gutter clear in Spetisbury fits naturally alongside the roof. Block paved drives are the one surface where a pressure wash earns its keep and they are re-sanded afterwards, and the path on the shaded side is the one we would do before the roof.
How it runs
Cleaning a roof, walls or drive, how the job runs
Thomas walks round the property, looks at each surface and says how it should be cleaned: a soft wash with a biocide for render and roof tiles, low pressure for brick, or pressure for a drive. He prices it himself. The quote lists each surface and method, protecting plants and windows, access, and where the run-off goes. One company stays accountable for it throughout.
Moss grows thick on the concrete tiles of the sixties and seventies houses in Spetisbury, and render panels go green on the shady side. Roofs are cleaned from a ladder or tower, never by walking on brittle tiles, and the moss is bagged rather than left in the gutters. With the Stour so close, dirty wash water is not sent to a road gully, which is what the pollution prevention guidance expects. Plants are covered and paths rinsed at the end of the day. If the clean shows up cracked render or loose tiles, you get a photo of it and a separate price, and the clean itself carries on.
Cleaning is maintenance and needs no consent. Painting a wall for the first time, or rendering over brick, can; the Planning Portal explains when. There is no conservation area here, and Dorset Council holds the records for the listed entries, where listed building consent may cover the method.
Cost
Surface, growth and reach decide a cleaning quote
Exterior cleaning in Spetisbury is priced by surface and by method, not by the square metre. The surface. A block drive, painted render, bare brick and a concrete tile roof each need a different method and a different amount of care. Brick on the older cottages is soft and will not take a pressure washer.
How much growth. A light green film washes off in one go. Thick moss on a roof, or lichen on render, needs scraping, a biocide and time to work, and sometimes a second visit to finish.
Access. A bungalow roof is reached from a ladder, a two storey roof needs a tower, and the work at height rules set which. A house on the main road also needs the footway protecting while we work.
Water and waste. Where the run-off goes, and taking the moss away, not leaving it in the gutters, are real parts of the job.
Gutters after a roof clean. Moss scraped off a roof ends up in the gutter. Clearing it afterwards is sensible, and it is shown as a separate item so you can see it.
Ask other quotes which biocide they use, whether they put pressure on the roof tiles, and whether the gutters are cleared afterwards.
If there is a date
Cleaning ahead of a sale, a viewing or winter
Nothing about a dirty wall is an emergency, but some jobs are worth timing. If you are selling, get the front cleaned before the photographs. If moss on the roof is thick, clear it before autumn so it does not end up blocking the gutters.
A slippery green drive or path should be treated before the frosts. On the first visit we look at every surface and tell you what needs doing now and what can wait. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If you have a date to meet, ring us, and if we cannot answer we call back.
Worth knowing
A valley floor keeps everything wet for longer
The village sits on the floor of the river valley with the ground rising away on both sides, and that keeps the outside of your house damp and shaded. It holds damp air in overnight, so surfaces here are still wet in the morning long after a house on higher ground has dried out.
And it takes the low winter sun off the shaded elevations altogether for weeks at a time, which is exactly when a wall most needs a few hours of drying.
Algae, moss and lichen do not need feeding. They need a surface that stays damp, and the valley provides one for most of the winter. Nothing has failed and nothing is wrong with your render. The conditions here are simply better for the thing you are trying to get rid of than they are half a mile up the hill.
What follows is worth acting on. First, get the timing right, not just the frequency. A wash and a biocide want a dry spell once the leaf fall has finished, and the gutters are best cleared when the trees along the river and the old railway are bare, not in September. Second, do not judge a treatment by how the shaded side looks.
A biocide on a north facing wall in this village is doing well to hold as long as the same product on the sunny front, and anyone quoting you the same interval for both has not looked at the house. We will tell you which elevation is the short one, and price the two separately so you can do the difficult side more often and leave the rest alone.
Who you are dealing with
Exterior cleaning in and around Spetisbury
We clean houses in Spetisbury, Charlton Marshall, Blandford and Bryanston, and down the valley towards Wimborne. The village is 14.2 miles from our base in Boscombe, and Dorset Council is your authority. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales as company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Spetisbury, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen runs the firm and prices every clean himself after looking at each surface. The Checkatrade rating from a verified customer is 10 out of 10. Coming to look is free, as is the written quote listing each surface.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Spetisbury?
Most repairs in Spetisbury 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 Spetisbury |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Spetisbury. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Spetisbury, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Spetisbury. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Spetisbury. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Spetisbury
Flats are rare here. Does that speed anything up?
Yes, it speeds up the booking. Hardly any homes in Spetisbury are flats, so almost everybody who calls owns the whole building and can instruct the work without asking a freeholder or waiting on a managing agent. That means we can price it and book it in one go.
It also means the entire outside is yours to think about at once, so it is usually worth pricing the roof, the gutters and the drive together rather than coming back three separate times.
Our roof is under trees. How often will it need doing?
More often than an open one. Woodland close to Spetisbury drops leaf and twig litter onto the roof and into the valleys every autumn, and that mulch is what feeds moss on the tile edge. Keeping the gutters clear each year usually keeps the roof itself on a much longer cycle, and we would sooner tell you that than sell you a roof wash you did not need.
Can the barn and the outbuildings be done at the same time?
Yes, and they are usually in worse order than the house. Spetisbury has listed entries of its own, so if your barn or outbuilding is one of them the method has to be agreed with Dorset Council before anything touches it. On an unlisted barn we still keep pressure off old roofing sheets and rotten bargeboards, and price the roof, the walls and the yard as separate lines you can drop.
The pointing looks soft on the older half of the house. What then?
Then that half does not get washed at pressure. 20.1% of Spetisbury predates 1919, so plenty of buildings here have older brick with lime joints on one part and harder later work on another, and the two need different handling on the same elevation. We test a small area low down where it will not show. Where a joint is already open, the wall wants repointing before it wants cleaning, and we put that in writing.
What time of year suits a drive and patio clean best?
Late spring through to early autumn, because the surface has to dry before joints are re-sanded and the freely draining ground at Spetisbury does the rest in a dry week. We keep off frost, which lifts wet jointing sand back out of the gaps, and we avoid the fortnight when the trees are actually dropping, because you will be sweeping it again by morning. Walls can be treated in almost any month that is not freezing.
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Exterior cleaning near Spetisbury
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Get a price for cleaning in Spetisbury
Tell us the address and which side of the house is the problem. We come out, look at it and put an itemised price in writing. Neither the visit nor the quote costs anything.