Exterior cleaning in Upton
Roof moss, overflowing gutters, streaked render and tired block paving cleaned across Upton, with the whole gutter run done rather than your share of it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On an Upton terrace the gutter is the part that matters most, because it is one run over several houses rather than one run over yours. Most jobs here are a single visit: moss off the roof, gutters cleared and flushed, render soft washed, drive weeded and re-sanded. The housing is post war terraces, semis and bungalows with concrete tile roofs.
The usual reason people ring is water in the wrong place. A gutter that goes over the front edge every time it rains hard, a stain running down the render under the join, or a downpipe that has stopped taking anything at all. Behind that is the roof moss that filled the gutter in the first place, and behind that is a drive gone green and weedy along the edges where nobody parks.
That is one problem in three places and it is worth doing in that order. Rainwater goods first, then the roof that feeds them, then the ground. The site visit is free, the written quote prices each surface on its own line so nothing is hidden inside a single figure, and if the drive can reasonably wait a couple of years we will tell you that instead of adding it.
The work
One gutter, four houses, and the rest of the estate work
Gutters first, and the whole run. Just over half of Upton went up between 1945 and 1982, with the peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so terraces and pairs of semis are the common shape and the gutter is one continuous run shared between houses. The outlet may not be on your half of it, so we clear and flush the whole length rather than the bit above your own windows. Moss off the roof settles at the outlet, packs solid, and everything backs up behind it. Runs cleared, outlets cleared, water put through to check the fall, and the debris leaves in the van. With heath and woodland on the edge of the village they fill again faster than they would in the middle of a town, so once a year is not fussy here.
Roofs and walls on the estates. Concrete interlocking tile on nearly all of it, shallow pitch and long slopes, so a good deal is reachable on poles from the ground. Moss comes off dry, worked down the slope so nothing is driven up under the laps, the ridge is cleared, then a biocide goes on to kill the spores and slow the regrowth. No jet wash: pressure strips the face off a concrete tile and it greens over faster afterwards than it did before. There is pebbledash and painted render on the older estates and facing brickwork on the later ones, and all of it is soft wash work. Pebbledash is the one people ruin, because the stones sit in a thin bed of mortar and force takes them off in patches you will be looking at for years.
Block paving gets the weed out, the black spot and algae off, and kiln dried sand brushed back into the joints, which is what keeps the blocks locked together and the first thing a quick clean leaves out. Concrete drives and slab patios get the growth off at the lowest pressure that will shift it, and the path to the door is done first because that is the bit somebody slips on. Blocks of garages, felt flat roofs over an extension or a porch and conservatory panels are common here, and the flat roof outlet is the one nobody looks at until the ceiling below it marks, so it gets cleared by hand and flushed. Planting is wetted and sheeted first and every drain the water reaches is covered.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring, the same team from the first visit to the last, and an itemised quote with the method for each surface, the access and where the water goes on separate lines. A clean needs no permission. Upton has no conservation area of its own, the nearest is over towards Lytchett Minster, and there are four listed entries in the whole area, so what you do to the outside afterwards is largely your own decision. Painting or rendering a wall that was never painted is a change rather than a clean, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where the limits sit. Dorset Council is the authority and we check the address before quoting.
Cost
What decides the price of a clean
No rate per square metre, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. Access sets most of it: a terrace with a shared alley to the back, a semi with a side gate a barrow only just fits through, and a bungalow with its own drive are three different days. Poles reach a lot of these shallow slopes, some of it wants a tower, and work at height rules decide which. Comparing quotes, ask what method is used on each surface, whether treatment is included or only a rinse, and where the run off goes.
If there is a date
A viewing, a visit or a deadline
Ring rather than use the form. Not emergency work, but usually work with a date on it: a sale, a letting inspection, or scaffolding coming down. Upton is under seven miles away, so if a date is tight we can usually get out to look at it the same week and tell you what is realistic. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
On a terrace the gutter is not only yours
Roughly a quarter of the homes in Upton are terraced and a good many more are semis on the same estates. That changes the most common job here more than anything else about the place. On a terrace of four or six, the gutter is a single run from one end to the other and the downpipe may be two doors along from you.
Clearing the length above your own windows does very little if the outlet is packed at number 12, and the water will come over the front edge at whatever point the run has dropped lowest, which is often not your house at all. It is the reason two neighbours can each pay for a gutter clean and both still have a wet wall in November.
So the practical answer here is to do the run in one visit. Speak to the neighbours, get us to look at the whole terrace, and the setting up, the access and the waste happen once rather than four times, which shows up in the quote as a smaller figure for each house rather than a discount we invented. The other Upton question is getting to the back.
Some of these houses have a side gate wide enough for a barrow, some have a shared alley, and some have nothing at all, in which case hoses and kit come through the house or round the block and that is real time rather than an excuse. Tell us which you have when you ring and the price we give you will be the price.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Upton, Lytchett Minster and the BH16 streets across to Lytchett Matravers, Holton Heath, Sandford and Broadstone. 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
Upton questions we get asked
Why do our gutters fill up again by October?
Because Upton sits against heath and woodland, so the gutters, valleys and any flat roof here take a drop of needles and leaf litter twice over, once in spring and again through autumn. Moss washed off a tile face lands in the same run. We clear the gutter and the valley before the roof is treated, otherwise the first heavy rain carries all that debris straight back down into the outlet.
Our terrace row all wants doing. Does that change anything?
It changes the sequence more than the work. Terraced housing and bungalows each run at 24.2% in Upton, and those rows share a gutter line and often a valley, so water finds the join between two houses before it finds anything else. Where neighbours book together we work the run end to end and clear the shared gutter in one pass. Thomas Hannen still prices each house on its own.
Do I need council consent to clean the walls here?
Not for washing. Upton has no conservation area of its own and only four listed entries in the whole settlement, so cleaning render or brickwork counts as maintenance as far as Dorset Council is concerned. Consent becomes relevant if the appearance of a listed building changes, and painting or coating a wall after a wash is a different question from cleaning it. We tell you at the visit which of those you are asking for.
What keeps the run off out of the ditch?
Ground sheeting, a bunded collection point at the low corner, and a screen over any gully that drains to open ground. Upton drains towards Poole Harbour, and biocide or moss slurry reaching a ditch that feeds it is not something to be casual about. The moss comes off the sheeting into bags and leaves with us. Where a downpipe runs to a soakaway we cap it for the day and let the water off elsewhere.
What can I see from the ground before you visit?
Stand back at the far kerb and look along the ridge line and the verge mortar rather than at the tile faces. Green on the shaded pitch is normal in Upton with this much tree cover; a gap in the ridge bedding, a bowed gutter or a dark streak below a valley is not. Photograph anything you cannot make sense of. It tells us whether you want a clean or a repair before we arrive.
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Get a written price for your Upton clean
Send the postcode and tell us what needs doing. We come out, look at the roof, the gutters, the walls and the drive, and put the price in writing.