Exterior cleaning in West Parley
Roofs, render, gutters, decking and driveways cleaned at the pressure each one will take, with the run off going somewhere sensible. Free site visit.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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The questions worth asking any cleaner in West Parley are what pressure is going on each surface and where the water is going afterwards. Roofs and render here get a soft wash and a biocide at low pressure. The paving takes a machine. And on plots this size the run off is a real decision, not an afterthought.
The usual calls are a roof that has gone dark on the shaded pitch, a drive or a patio that is green and slippery across half its area, and gutters that have quietly stopped running under whatever the trees on the boundary have been dropping. Often all three at once, because they are connected: a gutter that overflows keeps the wall below it wet, and a wet wall grows what a dry one does not.
We survey the whole plot before pricing any of it, including the boundary walls and the bits round the back that people forget until the quote arrives. Tile, render, brickwork, timber and paving all get handled differently, and the written price is itemised line by line so you can see what the driveway costs against what the roof costs and choose. Nothing is booked until you have that in your hand.
The work
Wide plots, big roofs and a great deal of paving
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 in West Parley are big and well treed, and oak, pine and leylandii on a boundary fill a gutter and the valleys of a hipped roof fast, so gutter clearing is worth booking with the roof. 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.
How it runs
Cleaning roofs, render and drives on a bungalow plot
In West Parley exterior cleaning usually means moss on a low bungalow roof, green streaks on render or a pebbledash gable, and a block paved or tarmac drive gone dark.
Thomas comes out, looks at each surface and chooses the method: a soft wash with a biocide for render and roofs, hand scraping and a low pressure rinse for moss, and a rotary cleaner for paving. The written quote lists the method, access, protection of plants and windows, and where the run off goes.
Care starts before the washing. We cover plants and drains where needed and keep run off away from ponds. Moss and debris are bagged and taken away, and the drive and paths are rinsed and swept at the end. If cleaning shows cracked render, slipped tiles or loose pointing, we photograph it and give you a price, and nothing more is done without your say.
Cleaning is maintenance, so there is no planning application. The small conservation area around the old church and the four listed entries are the only places where the method needs more thought. Painting brick that has never been painted, or rendering over it, is a change of appearance, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls is where to check first. Dorset Council is the authority for this address.
Cost
Height, surface and water: what changes a cleaning quote
The same square metre can take a few minutes or most of a morning, so we do not charge by area.
Height. A bungalow roof and gutters can be reached from the ground with a pole. A detached house with a hipped roof two storeys up needs a tower, and the work at height rules for roofs decide which.
The surface. Modern thin coat render needs no pressure at all, only a soft wash. Concrete roof tiles take a gentle scrape and a treatment. Block paving takes a rotary clean and fresh jointing sand. Any biocide we use falls under HSE's biocides rules.
Water and run off. A long gravel drive can put the van well away from the nearest tap, and on a plot near a pond or the river, where the run off ends up has to be planned.
Ask any other quote which method they use on each surface, whether a second treatment visit is included, and where the water ends up.
If there is a date
A sale, a viewing or a deadline to clean for
Cleaning is rarely an emergency, but it often has a date: a house going on the market, a letting check, or scaffolding coming down that you want to use first. Tell us the date when you ring, and we will say honestly whether we can fit it in.
A drive or path gone green and slippery in winter is a real hazard, and it can be treated before a full clean. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If you cannot reach us, we will ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Where a few thousand litres of dirty water is going to go
West Parley is mapped in the high band for surface water flood risk. That is not the Stour coming out of its banks, it is rainfall arriving faster than the ground and the drains here can take it, and it is why some of these roads flood in a summer downpour while the river is nowhere near the top of its banks. You can check any individual address on the government flood risk service in a couple of minutes.
It matters to a cleaning job because washing a long drive puts a lot of water down in a short time, on ground that is already the constraint, and it usually carries a treatment with it. Where that water is sent is a decision somebody has to make before the machine starts, and on plenty of quotes nobody has made it.
What we do about it is dull and it is the part that matters. The discharge point is agreed with you before we set up. Wash water carrying any product goes to a foul drain or to a soakaway we have both looked at, never into a surface water gully that runs to a ditch, and pollution prevention guidance is why. Every gully and drain on the route gets covered while we work.
On a permeable or resin bound drive we clean in bays and let each one take its own water rather than sheeting the lot downhill towards the road or your neighbour's boundary, which is slower and is the reason a big drive is quoted by the day rather than by the metre. If you are comparing prices, ask the other quote the same question. Anyone who has not thought about it is going to send it to the lowest point on your plot and let you find out where that is.
Who you are dealing with
Exterior cleaning in West Parley
West Parley is roughly 4.5 miles from our base in Boscombe. We clean across the BH22 side of the Stour, out to Ferndown, Longham, Hampreston and Bearwood, and Dorset Council is the authority for your address.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it and prices every clean himself after looking at each surface. A verified review on Checkatrade gives us 10 out of 10. Coming out costs nothing, and the itemised quote in writing is free as well. Before you book a visit in West Parley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Parley?
Most repairs in West Parley 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 West Parley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Parley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: West Parley Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around West Parley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Parley. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in West Parley
The drive floods in heavy rain. Does that affect cleaning it?
Yes, a drive that floods affects how we clean it. West Parley falls in a high surface water band, so drives here already struggle to shed a downpour, and a wash adds several hundred litres on top of whatever the ground is holding. We work the fall in sections and send the water to a foul drain or soakaway agreed with you, never a road gully.
If block paving sits wet for days after rain the joints have silted up, and re-sanding is part of putting that right.
Can resin bound gravel be cleaned without lifting it?
Yes, at low pressure with the lance kept moving. Resin holds the stone in a thin mat and a fixed jet punches straight through, leaving a bald patch that has to be made good. We wash wide and slow and treat the algae instead of trying to blast it out of the surface. Many of the newer West Parley frontages are resin laid over old concrete, and where the mat has already lifted we say so before starting.
Is modern silicone render safe to wash?
Silicone render washes well and wants no pressure at all. The surface is made to shed water, so once the algae film is killed most of it rinses off gently and the rest weathers away. What damages it is a lance held close, which polishes the aggregate and leaves a shiny band you cannot get rid of. On the newer detached houses around West Parley we soft wash and allow a longer dwell, never force.
The decking is lethal from November. Can that be sorted?
It can be brought back to bare timber and then treated, and the treatment is what stops it returning. The green film is algae growing down in the grain, so brushing leaves the roots behind. Under the tree cover around West Parley it will be back inside a season without a biocide. We wash along the grain rather than across it, treat it, and say honestly if a board has gone soft enough to need replacing.
What does the written quote actually break down into?
Roof, walls, gutters, drive and any glass, each on its own line, with the treatment listed apart from the wash. Thomas Hannen comes out, measures it and writes it himself, so elevations are described as they are, not lumped together as one house. You can strike a line out and we do the rest. West Parley is close to base, so the visit is an easy one to fit in.
Nearby, and next door
Exterior cleaning near West Parley
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Free quote
Get a price for exterior cleaning in West Parley
Tell us the address and which surfaces have gone green. We come out, walk the whole plot and put an itemised price in writing. No charge for either.