Exterior cleaning in Stone
Roofs, render, gutters, walkways and paving cleaned for homeowners, managing agents and residents' companies alike.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Before anything else, find out who is allowed to order the work. A good share of the homes around Stone are flats and maisonettes, and the roof, the gutters, the communal render and the parking court all belong to the freeholder rather than to the person living under them. We are just as happy quoting a managing agent as a homeowner, but a quote sent to the wrong person is a fortnight gone.
The jobs themselves are the ordinary ones. A roof slope has gone dark green and the moss is shedding into the gutters. A communal walkway or a set of external stairs has turned slippery. The render on a block has gone patchy and streaked under the downpipes. Or the leaves have filled everything again and water is coming over the gutter instead of down it.
We look at each surface separately rather than pricing a building as one lump, because on a block the roof, the walls and the hard standing are often three different decisions with three different budgets behind them. The free site visit and the free written itemised quote set the method against each line, which is what a managing agent needs in order to compare it properly and what a homeowner needs in order to see what has been left out.
The work
Blocks, estate cottages and everything in between
WORK Blocks, and who can order the work. Getting on for a third of the homes here are flats or maisonettes, mostly two and three storey with concrete interlocking tile above them. The outside of a flat, roof and walls alike, belongs to the freeholder and comes out of the service charge, so the person who rings is often not the person who can instruct it. Give us the managing agent or the residents' company and we will quote them direct. On a communal roof the moss packs into the channel and the lap and nobody notices until it is in the gutters: a dry scrape and a brush, then a soft wash at low pressure through a wide nozzle with an approved biocide behind it, which kills the spore and holds the regrowth back a season or two. Stairs and walkways before roofs. External stairs, walkways and the shared paths matter more than the roof does, because they are the bit somebody slips on. Those get done first and they get done properly, never jet washed, since a lance on a worn concrete tread just roughens it. Around the older parts of the parish at Pamphill there is a great deal of brick with flint panels, clay plain tile and lime mortar, and none of it takes pressure. The lime joint is softer than the brick and the flint it holds, so a lance finds the joint first and strips it without you seeing it go. Those walls get a low pressure soft wash and a treatment where there is lichen. The listed entries around here run into three figures and are concentrated around Pamphill and the estate rather than through the modern housing, so it is worth knowing which side of that line your address sits before anyone changes how it looks. On block elevations, gable ends and boundary walling we test paint before anything else, because masonry paint that has gone chalky comes off in sheets under pressure and turns a clean into a redecoration bill for the service charge. There are a great many mature trees along the lanes and the avenue through the estate, so gutters take a heavy leaf fall on top of the roof moss and communal downpipes are usually the last thing anybody checks: clearing is by hand or by vacuum, every outlet is flushed through once the planting in the communal beds is sheeted and the drain gullies are protected, and the valley between two pitches is cleared at the same visit. Parking courts in block paving take a pressure wash and are re-sanded after it, and bin stores get a wash down and a rinse.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
RUNS One team from first visit to last, no sub-contracting, and a quote itemised by surface rather than a figure on the back of a card. On a block that quote goes to whoever holds the covenant, so we need the agent's details early, with a line on it for where the wash water goes, because run off across a parking court is a pollution question. Cleaning is maintenance and there is nothing to apply for. Painting or rendering a wall that was not painted or rendered before is a different question, and the Planning Portal sets out where that needs consent. Dorset Council is the authority for this address, and with more than ninety listed entries around Pamphill it also holds the records on listed building consent.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
There is no rate per square metre. What sets the price on this side of the parish is who has to be got past and what has to be reached: a block with a communal garden needs the agent's say so and a route in before a hose is uncoiled, an estate cottage down a track is nearly all reach pole work off the ground, and a three storey gable wants a tower and a still day. work at height rules decide which of those it is. After that it is whether the growth needs treating and time or comes off with the wash.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. Block work here usually has a date behind it, an inspection, a survey or a sale in the building, and that needs the longest lead time of anything we do, because the agent has to agree it before we can book it. Ring as soon as the date is known. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, by arrangement.
Worth knowing
Who is actually allowed to instruct it
Around a third of the homes here are flats or maisonettes, and that changes who you are before it changes what the job is. The outside of a flat, the roof over it, the gutters, the communal render, the walkways and the parking court, almost always belongs to the freeholder and is paid for out of the service charge. So the person who notices the moss is very often not the person who can order it cleaned.
That is not an obstacle, it is just a different phone call. Give us the managing agent or the residents' company and we will quote them direct, with the method and the price against each surface so it can be put in front of leaseholders without an argument. If you own a house here, none of this applies and you can simply book it.
The one thing worth knowing early is the consultation. Where the cost per leaseholder passes a set figure, the landlord has to consult everybody under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 before the work goes ahead, and that takes weeks rather than days.
It is the single most common reason a summer clean turns into an autumn one. If you are on a residents' committee and you can see the roof going, start the quotes early in the year rather than in June. It is also worth checking your lease for what is actually yours: a private balcony, a patio or a conservatory attached to your flat is often yours to clean, even when the wall behind it is not, and we are happy to do just that bit.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Stone, Pamphill and Cowgrove on BH21, out through Wimborne, Furzehill and Broadstone, 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
Stone questions we get asked
We rent the flat. Can we book the outside cleaned ourselves?
Not usually. Flats and maisonettes are 32.1% of the stock around Stone and Pamphill, and on a flat the outside walls, the roof and the gutters belong to the freeholder and are funded out of the service charge. A tenant or leaseholder booking it privately is paying twice over. Get the managing agent to ask us for a quote, or pass ours on to them. We are content to deal with an agent directly once someone points us at one.
The block's walkways and stairs are filthy. Are they part of it?
They are a separate job with a separate risk. Communal walkways and stair treads have to be done in sections so people can still get in and out, and they need a non slip finish rather than a polished one, so we work them out of hours and dry behind us as we go. On the quote they appear as their own line with their own area, because a freeholder often signs off the walls and defers the walkways.
Pamphill has a lot of old buildings. Does that hold things up?
Only if yours is one of them. The parish carries 91 listed entries, Pamphill Manor House and the Chapel of St Margaret and St Anthony among them, and on a listed building the cleaning method needs agreeing with Dorset Council before we start. Everything else in Stone has no conservation area over it and needs no consent for a wash. We check the address against the list at quoting stage, not halfway through.
Our house is eighties render. What comes off and what does not?
The black and the green come off. The 1980s were the busiest building period around Stone at 19.5% of the stock, and that generation of render is a cement based coat with a painted finish, so a soft wash and a biocide lift the algae without stripping the paint. What will not come off is dirt that has got under a failed paint film. That is a redecoration, and washing only makes the patchiness more obvious.
Parking is all allocated bays here. Where do you set up?
One bay, close to whichever elevation is being washed, for the length of that section. The tank and the pump stay on the van and we run hose out from there, so there is no compound and no skip, but we do need that one space kept clear and any car under the wall moved for the morning. Where the bays are all let, we speak to the agent beforehand rather than blocking a resident on the day.
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Get a price for cleaning in Stone
Tell us the address and what has gone green, and say whether you own the building or manage it. We come out, look at it and put an itemised price in writing. Both are free.