Exterior cleaning in Tarrant Monkton
Roof moss, green render, blocked gutters and slippery paths cleaned in the Tarrant valley, at the pressure the building can take.
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 Tarrant Monkton is nearly all old fabric, so the honest answer here is less pressure, not more. Flint set in lime mortar, render over cob and old clay tile all come up well with a soft wash and a biocide left to do the slow work. The lance that cleans a modern drive would take the face off any of them.
In Tarrant Monkton a clean is due once the roof, a wall or a path starts to show it. A roof slope that has gone dark green and is shedding moss into the gutter below it, usually the slope that never gets the sun. A wall that has greened from the ground upwards rather than from the top down, which is what happens where the ground stays wet and the rain comes back off it. And a path or a threshold that has turned slippery over the winter and is now the thing somebody is going to fall on.
You rarely need all three doing at once, and we would rather say which one is costing you something and which one can wait. Gutters usually come first, because a blocked outlet is what puts the water on the wall in the first place. The site visit is free, the written quote is itemised so each surface is priced on its own, and if the answer is that the paving will keep for another two winters, that is what you will be told.
The work
Flint, clay tile and the bottom two feet of the wall
Flint and brick, and soft lime mortar. Banded flint and brick is the wall you meet all through the chalk villages, and the mortar holding the flints is soft by design. It is soft wash work: a treatment, low pressure through a wide nozzle, then a rinse.
Force does not clean that kind of masonry, it empties the joints, and re-pointing a flint elevation costs many times what the clean did. If the joints are already open we say so and stop, because washing an open wall pushes water inside it.
Thatch, and what we will not do to it. Where a roof is thatched, and some in Tarrant Monkton are, we do not clean it. Moss on a thatch and a green ridge are a thatcher's job, not ours, and no treatment of ours goes anywhere near it. Around a thatched range the work is the tiled parts only: the thatch is sheeted where there is any risk of overspray, and water is kept off the wall below. On clay plain tile and the later concrete interlocking, moss comes off dry, brushed down the slope so nothing is driven up under the laps, and a biocide follows.
Green low down on a wall rather than up at the eaves is the tell that the wall is taking water from the ground or from splashback off the path. Cleaning it makes it look right for a season. Clearing the gutter above it and getting the ground to drain away from the foot of the wall is what keeps it right, and we will say which of the two you actually need. Paths and thresholds come first, because that is where somebody slips.
How it runs
How an exterior clean is done, surface by surface
Thomas comes to look at the walls, paths and roof, works out what is growing on each and what it is growing on, and prices it himself. The clean follows once you agree the price.
The quote is itemised by method and surface: a soft wash with a biocide for render and old brick, a gentle rinse for flint and stone, and pressure only where the surface will take it. Protection for plants and windows, access, and where the water and residue go are separate lines. On a village street the run-off must not reach the road drains, so it is collected or diverted.
Paths are rinsed and the lane cleared of kit at the end of each day. If cleaning shows up cracked render, loose pointing or a slipped tile, you get a photo and the cost of putting it right, and it is your call.
Washing a building needs nobody's permission. What you do to it afterwards can. There are twenty seven listed entries in and around Tarrant Monkton, the Church of All Saints among them, and on those painting, coating or re-rendering changes the appearance. The council's page on listed building consent shows where that line falls, and Thomas checks your address before quoting.
Cost
What sets the cost of cleaning a house and its paths
The growth sets the time. A light green film comes off quickly. Years of moss, lichen and black algae need a biocide and time to work, not more pressure, which would strip the face off soft brick or render. Biocides fall under the biocides regime the HSE administers, and we use them as the label directs.
The surface. Old flint, soft brick, painted render and a modern block drive each get a different method.
The roof. Moss on a tiled roof is scraped off by hand and then treated. Pressure washing a roof drives water up under the tiles and wears the surface, so we do not do it.
Access. A thatched cottage on the lane means working around the eaves and keeping water off the thatch. A house behind a garden wall means hoses carried in. The work at height rules decide when a reach pole will do and when a tower is needed.
Water. Where there is no outside tap, or the run-off has to be collected rather than left to run into the lane, that adds time.
Ask anyone else what method each surface gets, whether a biocide is used and which one, and where the dirty water goes.
If there is a date
Cleaning before a sale, a visit or a deadline
A Tarrant Monkton clean is seldom a true emergency, but there are dates, so ring us: a sale, a survey, a letting inspection or a family event. Tell us the date on the call.
We are fifteen miles away, so a job in Tarrant Monkton is usually one visit to look and one to do the work, and the more notice you give, the easier that is to plan. Before we come, move cars, pots and garden furniture away from the walls. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody picks up, we will phone you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The Tarrant runs past the gardens, and that sets the method
Tarrant Monkton sits on the floor of its own valley with the stream a few yards from the back of some of the gardens, on a wet loam over chalk where the water table is never far down. That changes one thing more than anything else about a clean here: where the water and the residue are allowed to go when we have finished. Nothing may reach the stream or a field ditch that feeds it.
So planting against the wall is wetted and sheeted before we start, every drain and gully the run off could reach is covered and checked, products are used at the rate on the label under the biocides regime the HSE administers, and what we cannot let soak away goes with us. That is what pollution prevention guidance asks for and it is not optional.
It also decides how much water we use in the first place, which is the part most people never think to ask about. On a house standing on ground this wet, the low water methods are the right ones anyway. The roof is scraped dry and treated, not washed. Walls get a soft wash and a rinse instead of an hour of pressure.
Paving is done panel by panel with the water controlled rather than chased down the garden. Ground that is already damp at the foot of a wall does not need another few hundred litres adding to it, and a wall that has just been soaked will green again faster than one that was treated and left. If the job can wait for a drier spell, we will suggest that too.
Who you are dealing with
Who cleans your house, and how to check them
Tarrant Monkton is fifteen miles from our base in Boscombe, and we cover the villages along the Tarrant to Blandford Forum, Bryanston, Stourpaine and Spetisbury, with Dorset Council as the council. Thomas Hannen owns the business and comes to look at the house and price the clean himself.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales under 15471719. A verified customer put us at 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit is free, and you get the itemised quote in writing at no charge. Before you book a visit in Tarrant Monkton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Tarrant Monkton?
Most repairs in Tarrant Monkton 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 Tarrant Monkton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Tarrant Monkton. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Tarrant Valley Conservation Area (Tarrant Monkton). Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Tarrant Monkton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Tarrant Monkton
What does the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area actually control?
Appearance counts, not upkeep. Washing the walls, the roof or the yard changes nothing about how the building looks, so it needs no consent inside the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area. Replacing a covering with a different material, or putting a coating over something that was bare, is a change and does need permission from Dorset Council. There are 27 listed entries in and around Tarrant Monkton, the Church of All Saints included, and those need the method agreed.
The yard stays wet all winter. Can it still be cleaned?
It can, but the timing decides whether it holds. The ground at Tarrant Monkton is naturally wet, so a yard or a path here does not dry between showers the way it would on the chalk above, and jointing sand laid into a damp gap will never set. We wash in a dry spell and come back to sand it, or we lift the growth, treat it and leave the joints alone. Promising it stays clean over a wet winter would not be honest.
Our north wall greens every year. Is that the trees?
Almost certainly, along with the ground. There is heavy tree cover through the Tarrant valley, and a wall in shade on damp ground never gets the dry spell that kills algae off. A soft wash and a biocide left to work slow it right down. If a valley gutter above it keeps silting up and overflowing, that is a gutter clearing job worth doing first.
Should we paint the cleaned walls to keep them clean?
We would talk you out of it. A painted or sealed face on an old wall traps moisture that used to evaporate out through it, and across the Cranborne Chase landscape a change of finish gets looked at anyway, because everything here is visible from the ridge. A wall goes green because it stays damp, and paint does not cure damp. Clean it, keep the gutters clear so it is not being fed water, and leave it breathing.
The lane is single track. Can you get set up outside?
Yes, with a bit of planning. We work off the van, so what we need is somewhere to stand it that will not block the lane for a tractor or the post, plus a level standing for the pole. On the tighter properties in Tarrant Monkton we come in early and are off the road by mid morning. Thomas Hannen looks at the access on the pricing visit, so none of it is a surprise on the day.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near Tarrant Monkton
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Get a written price for your Tarrant Monkton clean
Send the postcode and say what is bothering you. We come out, look at the roof, the walls, the gutters and the paths, and put the price in writing.