Exterior cleaning in Three Legged Cross
Roof moss, streaked gutters and fascia, green render and weedy block paving cleaned across the village, without pressure where pressure does damage.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Three Legged Cross is mostly newer housing, so a clean here is usually a roof, a run of gutter and a block paved drive, all of it reachable from the ground. The part that gets damaged most often is the white plastic: fascia, soffit, gutter and conservatory frames do not want pressure, they want a treatment and a soft wash.
The call we get most from these lanes is about the black streaks running down the front of white gutters and fascia. It looks like dirt off the roof and it mostly is, and it stays there because nothing that runs down a plastic face ever quite dries. After that it is the drive, weeded up along the edges and slippery where the cars stand, and then the roof slope facing away from the sun that has gone properly green.
None of that is urgent and none of it is complicated, but the order matters and so does the method. We clear the inside of the rainwater goods first because that is what puts water down the wall, then the surfaces. The site visit is free, the written quote puts each surface on its own line, and if the drive genuinely has two more winters in it before it needs doing, we will say so.
The work
Concrete tile, block paving and a lot of white plastic
WORK Concrete tile, and the easiest covering to ruin. Nearly everything here went up after the war, most of it since the sixties, so the roof is concrete interlocking tile. Moss comes off dry, scraped and brushed down the slope so nothing is pushed up under the laps, the ridge and any valley are cleared, then an approved biocide goes on so the spores die back and the regrowth is slow. What we do not do is jet wash it. A lance takes the sand and cement face off a concrete tile, leaves it rough and porous, and the roof is greener two years later than it was before you paid for it. White plastic is the other half of the job. On a house built in the last forty years the fascia, soffit and cladding are plastic, and they are the surfaces most often wrecked by a cleaning job. Close range pressure scars the face, drives water up behind the soffit into the eaves and can blow the vent strips out of it. So they get a treatment, a soft wash through a wide nozzle, and a rinse, which takes the green and the streaks off. It does not take the chalky fade off, because that is oxidised plastic and no wash restores it, whatever anybody promises you. Conservatory panels go green at the overlaps, and the box gutter where the conservatory meets the house wall is the bit nobody can see and the bit that leaks, so that is cleared by hand and flushed, with the planting under it sheeted and the gully covered while the work is on. Block paving gets the weed out, the black spot off, then kiln dried sand brushed back in, which is what locks the blocks together, and re-sanding is the part most often skipped. Sealing afterwards is a separate decision and not one we push. Tarmac gets low pressure only, since a lance pulls the chippings out of it.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
RUNS One team from the first visit to the last, one person to ring, and Thomas Hannen writes the price himself, itemised by surface with protection, access and run off on their own lines, because where the wash water ends up is a pollution question we would rather answer before we start. The visit and the written quote cost nothing. Nothing about washing a building needs permission. There is no conservation area over Three Legged Cross and a single listed entry in the area, so what you do to the outside afterwards is very largely your own choice, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where the few limits sit. Dorset Council is the planning authority and we check the address before quoting anyway.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
Area is not the unit, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. What changes it on these closes is the way round the house: a bungalow you can walk right round, a terraced house where every hose and every barrow goes through one side gate, and a newer detached with a conservatory across the back are three different days. work at height rules decide what needs more than a pole. Ask any quote whether a treatment is included or it is only a rinse, because on plastic and on concrete tile that is the whole difference.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. We are nine miles away and out on this side most weeks, so if the date is a sale, a survey or the end of a tenancy, ring early and we will look at it before you commit to anything. None of it is emergency work, but a date is a date. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, by arrangement.
Worth knowing
A newer village means plastic, and plastic is the easy thing to spoil
Something like four in ten homes here went up after 1983 and most of the rest are post war. On a house of that age the eaves are not painted timber, they are plastic: gutter, fascia, soffit, often cladding on the gable and the frames of a conservatory across the back. That matters because plastic is the part of the outside of your house most commonly damaged by cleaning, and it goes wrong in two ways.
Too much pressure at close range marks the surface and forces water up behind the soffit into the roof space, where you will not see what it has done for a year. Too strong a product left too long on a warm afternoon takes the shine off and leaves a patchy face that then holds dirt worse than it did.
The useful thing to take from that is what to ask before you accept a price. Ask whether the outside faces of the gutter and the fascia are included or whether the quote only covers clearing the inside of the gutter, because those are two different jobs and people assume they are one. Ask what is going on the plastic and at what pressure.
And be a little wary of anyone promising to bring white plastic back to new: green, black streaking and general grime all come off, but the chalky, faded look of thirty year old plastic is the surface itself breaking down in sunlight, and honest work gets it clean rather than new. If a fascia has reached that state, replacing the boards is the real answer and it is a joinery job, not a cleaning one.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Three Legged Cross, Verwood and the BH21 lanes across to West Moors, Ashley Heath, Alderholt and Woodlands. 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
Three Legged Cross questions we get asked
Only one building here is listed. Do we need any permission?
Not for a clean. Three Legged Cross has no conservation area over it and one listed entry in total, so washing the walls, roof, gutters or drive is maintenance and needs nothing from Dorset Council. The green belt designation people ask about applies to new buildings and extensions, not to washing an existing one. The only thing that changes the picture is a plan to coat or paint a surface once it is clean.
Can you get black streaks off white fascia and gutters?
Yes, and it is one of the more satisfying jobs round here. 41.0% of Three Legged Cross was built between 1983 and 2008, which is when white plastic fascia and gutter became standard, and the streaking is oxidised plastic with dirt bonded into it rather than dirt sitting on the surface. It wants a chemical clean and a hand wipe, not a pressure washer, which polishes lines into the face. The gutter tops get done at the same time.
Our block paving sinks and greens in the low corner. Why?
Because the water has nowhere to go. The ground at Three Legged Cross is naturally wet, so the low corner of a drive stays saturated, sand washes out of the joints, and the blocks settle and green over ahead of the rest. Cleaning will look right for a season and then that corner goes again. We will clean it and tell you plainly that the answer is a drainage channel or a relaid section, which is a different job.
Will you clean a conservatory roof without walking on it?
Nothing goes on a conservatory roof. Bungalows are 24.8% of Three Legged Cross and a great many of them have a conservatory or sunroom on the back, so the glazing bars and the panels are done with a pole and a soft brush from ground level, working downwards. The gutter above it is cleared first, otherwise everything just cleaned gets rinsed over with whatever comes out of that gutter.
What order do you work in on a house and drive together?
Roof first, then gutters, then walls, then the hard surfaces last of all. Everything runs downhill, so doing a drive before the roof means doing the drive twice. On a typical Three Legged Cross bungalow with the parking across the front, that means the front is the last thing to come right and the whole job looks half finished until near the end. Worth knowing before you look out of the window at lunchtime.
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Get a written price for your Three Legged Cross clean
Send the postcode and tell us what is bothering you. We come out, look at the roof, the rainwater goods, the walls and the drive, and put the price in writing.