Exterior cleaning in Winfrith Newburgh

Flint and brick in lime mortar. The old fabric along the street is flint with brickwork bands between the courses, some of it rendered, pebbledashed or limewashed, and all of it bedded in lime. Lime is meant to be the soft part: it takes the weathering instead of the flint and lets a solid wall dry out through the joint. Put a lance on it and it finds the joint before it finds the dirt, cuts it back further than you can see from the ground, and pushes water into a wall with no cavity to drain it. These get brushed off dry, then a biocide through a soft wash nozzle at low pressure, then time. Green film is algae and lifts in days; black crusting is lichen and carries on fading for weeks.

Thatch, and what sits next to it. There is thatch in the village and it grows moss like every other roof. We do not clean it and nor should anybody else: washing a coat drives water into it instead of off it, disturbs the netting and the fixings, and starts it rotting from the inside. What we will do is clean the tiled roof next to it, sheeting the coat and the ridge first.

Away from the old street the coverings are concrete interlocking tile, with clay plain tile and slate on the older roofs. Moss packs the lap where one course sits over the next, and once a lap is packed water tracks sideways under the tile instead of running to the gutter, so we work top down from the ridge, take most of it away dry, and only then soft wash and treat. Slate takes no jet wash at all. Heath and pine on the edge of the parish put needles in the gutters as well as roof moss, and needles knit into a mat water runs straight over, so every outlet is flushed until it takes water. Block paving is cleaned with a rotary head and re-sanded, while old brick and stone laid on sand or lime take low pressure and a treatment. Drains and gullies are covered before anything is mixed, and products approved for the surface go on at the strength on the label, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires. The Win runs through the village and the low ground sits in flood zones 2 and 3, so run off is steered onto ground that will take it rather than into a road gully, which is what pollution prevention guidance is about.

No rate per square metre, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. Access decides most of it: a single storey cottage on the street is hand work off the ground, a two storey house wants reach poles and sometimes a tower, and a farm range set back behind a yard means a long hose run before a drop of water moves. work at height rules decide when a tower replaces a pole. Lime bedded fabric takes no pressure at all. Ask each quote what method goes on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the run off is going.

We cover Winfrith Newburgh and the villages along the lower Frome on DT2, out to Wool, West Lulworth, Owermoigne and Wareham, with Dorset Council as the local planning authority. 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.