Exterior cleaning in Verwood
Roof moss, long gutter runs, green render and sandy block paved drives cleaned across Verwood, mostly from the ground and without a platform.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Getting on for half the homes in Verwood are bungalows, so the standard job here is a long low roof, a lot of gutter for the size of the house, and a block paved drive laid on sand. Almost all of it is worked on poles from the ground, and the roof is scraped dry and treated rather than washed.
Three things get us called out in the town. A hipped roof where one of the four slopes has gone dark green because it faces away from the sun and never dries. Gutters that have quietly filled with what came off that slope, which on a bungalow is a long run to get round. And a drive where the sand has washed out of the joints, weed has taken the gaps and the whole thing has gone slippery where the cars sit.
Very few people need all three at once and we would rather say which one is actually doing harm. It is usually the gutters, because that is the one that ends up inside the fascia and on the wall. The site visit is free, the written quote puts every surface on a line of its own, and if the drive has two or three winters left in it before it is worth touching, you will be told that rather than sold it.
The work
Long low roofs, long gutter runs, and a drive on sand
Bungalow roofs. Nearly half the dwellings in Verwood are bungalows, 44.4% of them, and most of the rest went up in the 1980s. That puts the largest thing on the property within pole range of the path, and it is usually hipped, so there are four slopes instead of two and far more ridge and hip line to keep clear. One of those slopes never sees the sun and that is the one you are ringing about. Moss comes off dry, brushed down the slope so none of it is worked up under the laps, the ridge and hips raked out by hand, then a biocide to kill the spores and hold the regrowth back. The covering is nearly all concrete interlocking tile and it never sees a jet wash, because a lance strips the sand and cement face off it and the roof greens quicker afterwards than it did before.
More gutter than you would think. A bungalow has far more gutter for its floor area than a two storey house, and a hipped roof takes the run all the way round rather than across the front and back. More places to block, more corners to check, and the blockage is nearly always at the outlet where the downpipe starts. We clear the whole run and any valley, flush it through, check the fall, and the debris goes in the van rather than on your borders.
Render and painted masonry on some of the closes, brickwork on others, pebbledash on a number of the older bungalows, all of it soft wash work. The gable facing away from the sun is always the worst and the one to get right, because force on pebbledash takes the stones off in patches and force on painted render finds every edge that was already lifting. Verwood sits on sand and the drives here were mostly laid on it, so the jointing sand washes out faster than it would on clay and that is how the weed gets in. Weed out, black spot and algae off, then kiln dried sand brushed back into every joint. Conservatory panels, the box gutter where a conservatory meets the house, and the flat roof over a porch or garage are done by hand at low pressure. Planting is wetted and sheeted first and every drain the run off can reach is covered.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from the first visit to the last, one person to ring, and an itemised quote: method for each surface, protection, access and where the water goes, each on its own line. A clean needs no consent at all and no notice to anybody. There is no conservation area over Verwood and nine listed entries in the whole town, so what you choose to do to the outside afterwards is very largely your own decision, and Dorset Council's page on listed building consent covers the handful of buildings where it is not. We check the address before quoting rather than after.
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 bungalow you can walk right round with the van on the drive, a chalet bungalow with dormers cut into the roof, and a two storey house where the van stays out on the road are three different mornings. Poles do most of the work here, some of it wants a tower, and work at height rules decide which. Ask any quote what method goes on each surface, whether treatment is included, and where the run off ends up.
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. Verwood is eleven miles up the road and we are on this side most weeks, so looking at it before you commit to a date is easy to arrange. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Thirty year old tiles, and the man who wants to coat them
More than half of Verwood was built between 1983 and 2008, with the busiest years in the eighties. That means an unusual number of concrete interlocking tile roofs all reached the same tired looking age at the same time, and because so much of the town is bungalows those roofs are in plain view from the pavement rather than hidden above a first floor.
It is exactly the market a sprayed roof coating is sold into, which is why people here get knocked on about it more than most. So it is worth saying plainly: green on a concrete tile is growth sitting on the surface, not the tile giving up, and a roof that looks tired from the pavement is a different thing from a roof that is letting water in.
Our answer is the dull one. Take the moss off dry, treat what is left, keep the rainwater running, and have another look in a few years. Where individual tiles have cracked, slipped or lost their face, have those dealt with as the small repair they are instead of letting them justify a much bigger job. If you are still interested in a coating after that, there are three questions worth asking anyone who offers one.
What preparation is going on before it, because a coating over live moss is money thrown away. What happens when a tile has to be replaced later, since a new tile will not match a coated one. And will you price the clean separately, so I can have the clean without the coating? A firm that will not separate the two is asking you to buy the part you are unsure about in order to get the part you actually wanted.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Verwood, Three Legged Cross and the BH31 streets across to West Moors, Ashley Heath, Alderholt and Ringwood. 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
Verwood questions we get asked
Is a bungalow roof cleaned from a ladder or a tower?
From a tower or a low platform in most cases. Verwood is bungalow country at 44.4%, so the eaves are easy to reach but the roof is broad and shallow and walking on it wrecks the tile edges. A pole fed system covers most of a bungalow spread from the ground. Where the ridge sits too far back for the pole we set a small tower on the drive rather than a full scaffold.
Most of the estate went up in the eighties. Does that matter?
It matters for what we find under the moss. With 55.6% of Verwood housing built between 1983 and 2008, the coverings are concrete interlocking tiles of much the same age, and the weak point is the mortar bedding at ridge and verge rather than the tile itself. A clean strips out the moss holding a loose verge in place, so we look at the bedding first and say if washing will expose a repair.
The drive greens over every winter. What actually fixes it?
Killing the growth rather than blasting it off. A jet wash lifts the top layer, leaves the roots down in the joint and drags the kiln sand out at the same time, which gives the next lot of weed somewhere to sit. Around Verwood the wide bungalow frontages hold water at the edges and it starts there. We wash, treat with a biocide, then re-sand the joints. The treatment is what buys you a quiet winter.
A cold caller offered to spray our roof afterwards. Should we?
We would not. A coating seals the face of a concrete tile, and on the shallow wide pitches common in Verwood the water then sheets off into gutters already loaded with heath and pine debris. It also hides the ridge and verge bedding, which is the real thing to watch on eighties stock. Put the money into the mortar work instead. Both options go in the written quote so you can compare them properly.
What goes down before you start on the conservatory side?
Sheeting over the conservatory glass and the beds beneath it, a cap on the water butt, and the garden furniture pulled off the patio. On a bungalow plot in Verwood the whole roof drains onto planting tight against the wall, so a wash puts everything that was on the tiles into the borders unless it is caught. Moss comes off the sheets into bags. Anything still damp when we leave gets rinsed down clean.
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Get a written price for your Verwood 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.