Exterior cleaning in Wimborne Minster
Green roofs, grey fronts, silted parapet gutters and slippery paving, cleaned at the pressure old fabric will stand. Free site visit, free itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
In the middle of Wimborne Minster the right answer is nearly always the gentlest method that works. The old fronts are handmade brick, lime pointing and paint that has been on there a long time, and all three come off with the dirt if somebody uses pressure. Soft wash, a biocide and patience. Out on the newer estates a machine is fine and the job is quicker.
What needs doing divides neatly. In the town it is a front gone grey and streaked with algae, a rear slope furred with moss that nobody can see from the road until a tile comes down, and gutters behind a parapet that have not been looked at in years. Out on the estates it is a mossy concrete tile roof, green render and a slippery drive.
Either way we survey the whole building before pricing any of it, and on the older properties we test a small area somewhere nobody looks before we go near a front elevation. The written price is itemised surface by surface, so the roof, the gutters, the walls and the paving each carry their own figure and you can do them in whatever order suits you. Nothing is booked until you have said yes to it.
The work
Painted fronts, old brick and roofs you cannot see from the street
Roofs in the old town, roofs on the estates. Nearly a fifth of Wimborne Minster predates 1919 and the largest single band is pre-1900, so the centre is plain clay tile and natural slate, steep, often running the length of several properties and reached from a rear yard rather than the street.
Moss beds into the laps, holds water against the tile and lifts the tail, and on slate it gets under and starts moving nails. The growth comes off dry, scraped from the gutter line upwards so the laps clear instead of packing, then soft washed at low pressure and treated so the spores die back over the following weeks. A jet wash on a roof like this drives water under the lap, strips the fired face off the tile and washes the mortar from under the ridge, and the damage shows up as a leak months later. The post-war housing towards the edges of Wimborne Minster is concrete interlocking tile, tougher, and quicker per slope because access is off your own drive.
Who can actually instruct the work. A third of the dwellings in Wimborne Minster are flats or maisonettes. The outside of a flat, roof and walls alike, belongs to the freeholder and is managed out of the service charge, so the person ringing often cannot authorise the job. It is worth settling who can before anybody quotes, because a communal parapet gutter done properly once is a shorter conversation than four leaseholders arguing about a damp patch.
The older streets are handmade brick with lime pointing, stucco and painted render repainted many times over, and it is all soft. Real force on a painted front strips the top coats away in bands, and force on brickwork of that age opens the joints and puts water inside the wall. So it is a low pressure nozzle, a treatment left to dwell and a gentle rinse. On the newer houses there is pebbledash and modern masonry that will take rather more, and we say which is which at the site visit.
Town centre buildings hide their rainwater goods behind parapets and down back passages, and the first sign of a blockage is a damp patch inside, so gutter clearing there is worth asking about. Brick paviours and old flags in Wimborne Minster, slabbed rear courtyards behind the shops, block paving and tarmac on the estates: block paving is re-sanded with kiln dried sand after washing, and old brick and stone gets far less pressure and more chemistry. Half the buildings in the centre stand straight on the footway, so the job includes managing people walking past and keeping the hose off the pavement edge. Products go on at the rate on the label and only where they are approved for the surface, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires, and pollution prevention guidance is why none of it goes into a highway drain.
How it runs
Cleaning brick, render and roofs around the Minster
Thomas comes out and looks at each surface, brick, render, stone, roof tiles and paving, then picks the method for each. The quote lists the method, access, protection, and where the water and residue go. The clean then follows that plan, surface by surface.
Soft old brick and lime pointing get low pressure and a biocide treatment, not a jet washer, which strips the face and the pointing. Painted render gets a soft wash. Modern concrete tile and paving can take more. On the town streets, fronts meet the footway, so we start early, fence off the pavement and keep the run off out of shop doorways. On a flat above a shop, the way up may be a shared rear yard, and the freeholder or neighbours need to agree. Plants, windows and vents are covered. Cracked render or open joints revealed by the clean are photographed and priced separately, never repaired without your say.
Washing a building is maintenance and needs no permission. A listed building, such as the Minster Church of St Cuthburga, needs care over the method, and any repair that follows needs listed building consent. Dorset Council is the authority for this address.
Cost
What decides the price of an exterior clean
Area alone does not set the price. The same area can be quick or slow depending on the surface and how you get to it.
Access. A front on the pavement with people passing needs barriers and an early start. A flat above a shop with only a shared yard behind is slow to set up. A post-war semi with its own drive is simple. Poles do a lot, a tower does the rest, and the work at height rules decide which.
The surface. Soft brick and old painted render need the lowest pressure that will work, and more time. Concrete paving can take a rotary cleaner. Roofs are cleaned by hand and treated, never jet washed.
What is on it. Green algae comes off with a biocide wash. Thick moss, lichen and black staining take longer and may need a second visit once the treatment has worked. Products are used within the biocides regime the HSE administers.
Run off. Water carrying chemicals must not go into a surface water drain, so it is collected or controlled, and that takes set up time.
Ask any other quote which method goes on which surface, whether a biocide treatment and a second visit are included, and where the run off goes.
If there is a date
A clean needed before a sale or a visit
Exterior cleaning is rarely an emergency, but it often has a date: a house going on the market, a family event, or a slippery path someone has already slipped on. Tell us the date when you ring.
On the first visit we look at the surfaces, treat any slippery paving first and plan the rest. In the town centre we start early so we are off the pavement before the shops get busy. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, phone, and if we cannot answer we ring you back.
Worth knowing
Cleaning it is fine. Taking the surface off it is not.
The centre of Wimborne is a conservation area and a great many of the buildings in the streets around the Minster are listed. Neither of those stops you having the outside cleaned. Cleaning is not development, so there is no planning application involved. The line that matters is a different one: listed building consent covers anything that alters the character of a listed building, and abrasive cleaning does alter it.
Grit blasting, a rotary lance or a strong chemical takes the fired skin off a handmade brick, opens the lime pointing and leaves stone with a raw face that then holds dirt worse than it did before. That is not reversible at any price. So on a listed building the order is: ask Dorset Council what is acceptable, then get it quoted, rather than the other way round.
In practice, on an old Wimborne front, we start with the softest method that could possibly work on a test patch somewhere nobody looks, leave it, come back and see what it has done, and only then decide. No abrasives, no rotary heads on brick or stone, and we stop as soon as it is shifting rather than pushing on for a brighter result. We will also try to talk you out of the following.
Stripping paint off a brick or rendered front to get back to the original: on a wall that has been painted for a century the fabric underneath is often in no state to be exposed, it changes the appearance of the street, and on a listed building it needs consent in its own right. And having the front done to match a neighbour who has just had theirs blasted, because in ten years theirs will be the one that looks tired. The conservation area controls how the building looks, not how clean it is, so a wash is your business and a change of finish is the council's.
Who you are dealing with
The firm cleaning your walls and paths
We clean homes in Wimborne Minster and the BH21 villages, including Colehill, Furzehill, Merley and Corfe Mullen, working out of Boscombe, 8.1 miles away. Dorset Council is your council for planning. The company doing the work is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Wimborne Minster, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
The owner is Thomas Hannen, and he looks at each surface himself and prices the clean. We have one verified Checkatrade review, and it scores us 10 out of 10. The visit is free and so is the written quote with each item set out.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Wimborne Minster?
Most repairs in Wimborne Minster 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 Wimborne Minster |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Wimborne Minster. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Wimborne Minster Conservation Area and St Johns Rowlands Hill Conservation Area. They cover parts of Wimborne Minster, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Wimborne Minster. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Wimborne Minster. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Wimborne Minster
Our block needs the outside doing. Who signs it off?
The freeholder or the managing agent rather than an individual leaseholder. Flats and maisonettes make up 33.9% of the housing in Wimborne Minster, and the roof and outer walls of a block are looked after out of the service charge. We price the whole building, send the itemised quote to the agent, and they consult the leaseholders as they are required to. A balcony you have exclusive use of is a separate matter you can instruct yourself.
The front is in the conservation area. Any restrictions on cleaning?
Washing is maintenance and needs no consent. The Wimborne Minster Conservation Area controls appearance, so a like for like clean is fine while a change of covering, a coating or a new colour on the render is not, and that is where Dorset Council want asking first. We will not put anything on a wall in the centre that changes how it looks without you having had that conversation. The wash itself needs no consent and can go in the diary.
Should the paint come off our brick front?
Usually it is better left, and never washed off. Nearly a fifth of the Wimborne Minster stock predates 1919, at 18.9%, and brick of that age under decades of paint is often in no state to be exposed. Stripping it under pressure destroys the face for good. Take specialist advice before anyone starts, and on a listed building get consent from Dorset Council first.
Can you start early enough for the shop to open?
We can be set up and working before trading starts. The centre of Wimborne Minster is narrow and busy from mid morning, so shopfront and upper elevation work goes in first thing, with sheeting and cones down before the pavement fills. Anything noisy gets cleared out of the way early. If the footway has to be partly closed we agree it with you and the neighbouring units first.
The back of the house greens up every autumn. Why there?
Because the back of a town property sits under mature garden trees and gets the least sun. Around Wimborne Minster many of the older terraces also share one downpipe between several houses, and when the far end silts up the overflow keeps the rear wall and the fascia wet. Clear the gutter run first, then soft wash and treat the wall, and it stays clean far longer.
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Exterior cleaning near Wimborne Minster
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Get a price for exterior cleaning in Wimborne
Tell us the address and what has gone green or grey. We come out, look at every surface and put an itemised price in writing. No charge for either.