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.
Last updated
Exterior cleaning around Stone starts with what the house is built from. Older walls here can be brick with flint, bedded in lime under clay tile, and the render, the roof and the paving each want a different touch. If you rent, check with the landlord before booking, because a quote sent to the wrong person is a fortnight gone.
The cleaning itself is the ordinary sort. A roof slope has gone dark green and the moss is shedding into the gutters. A path or a set of garden steps has turned slippery. The render on a gable 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 an older house the roof, the walls and the hard standing are often three different decisions with three different methods behind them. The free site visit and the free written itemised quote set the method against each line, which is what you need in order to compare it properly with another quote and to see what has been left out.
The work
Blocks, estate cottages and everything in between
Roofs, old and newer. An older cottage around Stone is more likely to carry clay plain tile, and a newer house concrete interlocking tile. Both hold moss in the laps, and both are cleaned from a ladder or a tower rather than by walking on them, because a tile that has weathered for decades cracks under a boot.
Barns and outbuildings get the same care, with pressure kept off old sheeting. On any tiled 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.
Paths and steps before roofs. Garden steps, paths and yards 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 stone or concrete tread just roughens it.
Old brick and flint at Pamphill. Around the older parts of the parish 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 in the parish are concentrated around Pamphill and the estate rather than spread evenly, so it is worth knowing which side of that line your address sits before anyone changes how it looks. On painted 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 you did not plan for.
The mature trees along the lanes around Stone and the avenue through the estate drop a heavy leaf fall on top of the roof moss, so gutter clearing, downpipes included, is worth adding to a roof clean. Drives and yards in block paving take a pressure wash and are re-sanded after it, and bin areas get a wash down and a rinse.
How it runs
Cleaning a house or a block, surface by surface
Thomas comes out, looks at each surface, and picks the method: a soft wash with a biocide for render, roofs and painted walls, a controlled pressure clean for paving, and hand work around anything fragile. In Stone the job might be a newer house with concrete tiles and a block paved drive, an older cottage with soft brick and flint, or a barn with an old roof and a yard.
The quote is itemised by surface, with access, protection and where the wash water goes on separate lines. Where you rent, we need the landlord's say so early because the quote may go to them, and run off across a yard or a drive is a pollution question under pollution prevention guidance. One point of contact covers the job. Plants, windows and drains are protected, and the moss and debris are swept up and removed. Cracked render or failed pointing that the clean exposes is photographed and priced for you, and left until you decide.
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 it holds the records on listed building consent for the many listed entries around Pamphill.
Cost
Growth, height and the agent's say-so in a clean
What is growing. Green algae on render lifts with a biocide and a soft wash. Moss on concrete tiles has to be scraped off by hand first, and black lichen on paving may need a second visit once the treatment has worked. The biocides regime the HSE administers sets what can be used.
Height. An estate cottage is mostly reach pole work from the ground. A two storey gable or a barn roof needs a tower and a still day. Work at height rules decide which.
Getting in. A cottage with no side access needs a route through the garden agreed before a hose is run out. A house with a drive is quicker to set up.
The surface. Too much pressure takes the face off soft brick or render and strips the sand from block paving joints, which then need re-sanding. Older cottage brick is the most easily damaged.
Run off. Wash water with biocide in it has to be kept out of surface water drains, which means collecting or diverting it, and on a large yard that is a real part of the time.
Ask another quote what method and products are being used, where the run off goes, and whether re-sanding is included.
If there is a date
An inspection, a sale or a slippery walkway
If you have an inspection, a survey or a sale coming, or a path has gone slippery with algae, ring us as soon as you know the date. A rented house needs the landlord to agree the work before it can be booked, so allow for that in the time you give us.
On the first visit we look at each surface, and a dangerous path can be treated first. Scheduled work Mon to Fri, 8am to 6pm. Something urgent? Ring, and if we miss you we call back.
Worth knowing
Who is actually allowed to instruct it
If you rent your home around Stone, that changes who you are before it changes what the job is. The roof, the gutters, the walls and the boundary are usually the landlord's to maintain under the tenancy, and the cost sits with them rather than with you. 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 landlord or the letting agent and we will quote them direct, with the method and the price against each surface so it can be agreed without an argument. If you own a house in Stone, none of this applies and you can simply book it.
The one thing worth knowing early is the listing. Where the house is one of the listed entries around Pamphill, the cleaning method has to be agreed with Dorset Council before a wash starts, and that can take weeks rather than days.
That alone can turn a summer clean into an autumn one. If you can see the roof going, start the quotes early in the year rather than in June. It is also worth checking your tenancy for what is actually yours: a patio or a garden path is often yours to keep clean, even when the wall behind it is not, and we are happy to do just that bit.
Who you are dealing with
Who you are dealing with for a clean in Stone
We cover Stone, Pamphill and Cowgrove on BH21, out through Wimborne, Furzehill and Broadstone. Our Boscombe base is about nine miles from Stone, and Dorset Council is the planning authority for this address. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Stone, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen owns the company and comes to price the clean in person. On Checkatrade, one verified customer gave a 10 out of 10. Coming out to look costs nothing, and nor does the itemised quote he writes up afterwards.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Stone?
Most repairs in Stone 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 Stone |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Stone. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Stone, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Stone. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Stone. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Stone
We rent our house. Can we book the outside cleaned ourselves?
Check with the landlord first. On a rented house around Stone and Pamphill the outside walls, the roof and the gutters are usually the landlord's to maintain. A tenant booking it privately may be paying for something that was never theirs to fund. Get the landlord or letting agent to ask us for a quote, or pass ours on to them. We are content to deal with them directly once someone points us at one.
The garden steps and paths are filthy. Are they part of it?
They are a separate job with a separate risk. Steps and paths you use every day have to be done in sections so you can still get in and out, and they need a non slip finish, not a polished one, so we work them a section at a time and dry behind us as we go. On the quote they appear as their own line with their own area, so you can sign off the walls and leave the paths for later.
Pamphill has a lot of old buildings. Does that hold things up?
Only if yours is one of them. The parish carries a good number of listed entries, Pamphill Manor House 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 rendered. What comes off and what does not?
The black and the green come off. Where the render on a house around Stone is a cement based coat with a painted finish, 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.
Where do you park the van while you work?
One space, 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 lane is narrow, we agree where the van goes beforehand rather than blocking a neighbour on the day.
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Free quote
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.