Exterior cleaning in West Parley

Hipped roofs, and more edge per house. Most of West Parley went up between 1945 and 1982, peaking in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and over a third of it is bungalows with another third detached, so the plots are wide and the roofs are big. The coverings are concrete interlocking tile, plenty of them hipped, with plain and interlocking clay on the older houses. A hip means more hip, ridge and valley per house than a simple gable, and every one of those is a line where debris collects and moss starts. The growth comes off dry, scraped upwards from the gutter so the laps clear instead of packing, then a soft wash at low pressure and a biocide left working. No jet wash on a roof: pressure lifts the tail of a tile, forces water under the lap and washes the mortar out from beneath the ridge.

The plots here are big and well treed, and oak, pine and leylandii on a boundary put more into a gutter than a street of houses does. Clearing is by hand and by vacuum, every outlet checked and every downpipe flushed so we know it runs, and on a hipped roof each valley is looked at, because a valley silts up out of sight and then overflows inwards onto the ceiling below rather than over the front. Brick and tile on the older houses, painted render and thin coat silicone render on the newer builds. The modern renders want a soft wash and nothing else: they are thin, coloured through, and a lance strips patches off one in seconds. On brickwork force takes the mortar out of the joint and drives water into the wall.

The paving is where the work is. The hard areas on a Parley plot are large: long block paved and gravel approaches, resin bound drives on the newer houses, and big slabbed or porcelain patios round the back. Block paving is washed with a rotary head and then re-sanded with kiln dried sand, which is what stops the blocks rocking and the weeds coming back. Resin bound is washed at reduced pressure with the lance kept moving, because holding it in one place picks the stone out. Surface water sits on this ground rather than draining away, so planting is sheeted, every gully on the route covered and the discharge point agreed first, with products at the rate on the label only where approved for the surface, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires.

No rate per square metre, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. Access decides most of it: a detached house with a hipped roof two storeys up, a bungalow whose eaves you can reach off a pole, and a long gravel approach where the van parks forty metres from the nearest tap are three different jobs. Poles do a lot, some of it wants a tower, and work at height rules decide which. Thin modern render wants no pressure at all. Ask each quote what method goes on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the water ends up.

We cover West Parley and the BH22 side of the Stour, out to Ferndown, Longham, Hampreston and Bearwood, and Dorset Council is the planning and building control authority for this address. 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.