Exterior cleaning in Winterborne Stickland
Roofs, walls, render, gutters, paths and decking in Winterborne Stickland and DT11. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Exterior cleaning in Winterborne Stickland is mostly dealing with shade: surfaces go green because they sit under trees, not because they are neglected. That changes the answer. On a property under trees the job is a soft wash treatment that kills what is rooted in the surface, plus a plan for the leaf fall every autumn, not a hard wash once every few years that looks marvellous in October and is back to square one by March.
A handful of things usually need attention. The path or the steps to the door are green and genuinely dangerous in wet weather. The gutter has stopped taking water because it is full of leaves and roof moss together. A north facing roof slope has gone dark and is dropping growth into the guttering below it. A rendered or colourwashed wall has gone patchy and grey. Or there is a date on it: a sale, a letting inspection, or family coming.
The free site visit is a proper survey of each surface, not a walk round the front. You get a written itemised quote with the method written next to every surface on it, and an honest word about the two or three things on your property that we would leave alone.
The work
Cleaning under the beeches, up a chalk combe
A shaded pitch is a mat, not a film. The coverings here run from clay plain tile and slate on the old houses to concrete interlocking tile on the later ones, with thatch on some of the cottages.
On a slope that sits under a tree line the moss is not a film, it is a mat, and it beds into the lap where each course covers the one under it until water is being pushed sideways, not down. The bulk comes off dry, scraped and brushed working down from the ridge, and only then a soft wash with a biocide, so the spores in the face of the tile die instead of washing into the gutter to start again. Slate gets no jet wash, ever, and thatch we do not clean at all.
Flint, brick and colourwash. The older walls in Winterborne Stickland are flint and rubble with brickwork dressings round the openings, plenty of it rendered, pebbledashed or colourwashed, and every bit of it bedded in lime. Lime is meant to be the sacrificial part, softer than the brick or the flint, so a lance takes the joint out first and drives water into a solid wall that has no cavity to shed it. The old fabric gets brushed dry, then a biocide through a soft wash nozzle at low pressure. Green algae goes within days; the grey freckling on render is lichen and dies back over weeks.
With mature trees over a good part of the village, the gutters fill with leaf litter as well as roof moss, and clearing them is a job worth doing before any wall below is washed. On a valley side surfaces stay wet for longer. Block paving takes a rotary surface cleaner and then re-sanding, while old brick and stone paths bedded on lime or sand take low pressure and a treatment. Decking under a canopy is the most slippery thing on most properties in Winterborne Stickland, and it gets low pressure, never a lance. Drains and any gully are covered before a product is mixed, planting and banks sheeted and watered down, and products approved for the surface go on at the strength on the label, which is what the biocides regime the HSE administers requires. Run off is steered onto ground that will take it, not allowed to sheet down the slope into a road drain, which is what pollution prevention guidance is for.
How it runs
Washing old flint, brick and render the gentle way
Thomas comes out and looks at each surface you want cleaned: roof, walls, render, paths or drive. On an older village house, soft brick, flint set in lime and old render cannot take a pressure washer, so he picks the method surface by surface. His quote shows the method for each, how we reach it, what gets covered, and where the dirty water ends up. The lot sits with one company, on one written quote.
Low work is done from the ground. Two storey walls use poles or a tower, and a roof needs proper access. On a cottage by the lane, we keep the road clear and stop spray reaching passing cars. Plants and windows are covered, and the ground is rinsed and swept at the end. Anything the wash reveals, such as open joints, cracked render or slipped tiles, is photographed and priced separately. Biocide use comes under the biocides regime the HSE administers.
Cleaning is maintenance, so there is nothing to apply for and no notice to give. What is worth knowing is what sits underneath it. Stickland has a recorded conservation area of its own, and roughly twenty five listed entries in and around Winterborne Stickland, the church of St Mary among them. If the wash uncovers open joints or blown render on a listed building, that repair needs listed building consent before anyone touches it. Dorset Council is the planning authority.
Cost
Poles, towers and soft surfaces: cleaning costs here
Cleaning in Winterborne Stickland has no fixed rate, because the same area can be quick or can take all morning, depending on what it is made of and how you reach it.
The surface. A concrete drive can be pressure washed. Lime-bedded flint, soft brick and old render cannot; they get a low pressure wash and a biocide that keeps working for weeks afterwards. Roof moss is scraped off and treated, never blasted.
Access. A single storey cottage on the street is ground work. A two storey house set into the valley side may mean poles from awkward footing. A property up a long lane means water and kit carried the last stretch. The work at height rules decide when a tower replaces a pole.
The run off. Dirty water and biocide must not run into a ditch or the North Winterborne, as the pollution prevention guidance makes clear. On some jobs it is collected.
A second visit. Biocide on render or roof tiles needs time, and sometimes a return to rinse. That is priced.
Ask other quotes what method they use on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the water goes.
If there is a date
A deadline for the house, or a path gone green
Most cleaning has a date on it, and a phone call is the way to tell us: a sale, a letting inspection, or scaffold coming down. Some of it is a hazard, like steps gone green and slippery. Spread grit or sand on them for now and keep people off.
Winterborne Stickland is at the far end of what we cover, so we plan work here in blocks, and if you give us the date we will tell you straight which week we can come. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Urgent, phone, and if nobody answers, we ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Shade is the thing you are really paying to deal with
The village sits in a narrow chalk valley with steep sides and a lot of mature tree cover, and that one fact explains most of what goes wrong on the outside of a house here. Shade means a surface stays wet for hours or days longer after rain than the same surface half a mile out on the open down.
Moss, algae and lichen need damp more than they need anything else, so they establish faster, root deeper and come back sooner. It is why the north facing roof slope is always the bad one, why the path on the shaded side of the house is the slippery one, and why a clean that holds for four or five years on an open site might only hold for two here.
The honest advice that follows is not what most firms will tell you. First, treat, do not blast, because on a rooted growth pressure only removes the visible part and leaves the surface ready to regreen. Second, a light treatment on the shaded surfaces every couple of years costs less than a full clean every few, and the gutters are best cleared each autumn once the leaf is down.
Third, if a single overhanging limb is keeping one elevation permanently dark, getting that cut back will do more for the house than anything we can sell you, and we will say so. And when you compare prices, ask how long the firm expects the work to hold on a shaded elevation. Anyone who gives you the same answer for the sunny front and the dark back has not looked properly.
Who you are dealing with
Who cleans your house, and how you can check them
We clean across the villages on the North Winterborne in DT11, from Winterborne Stickland out to Winterborne Whitechurch, Stourpaine, Bryanston and Blandford Forum, with Dorset Council as the planning authority. Our base, at 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe, is about 19.1 miles from the village.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. It belongs to Thomas Hannen, who comes out, checks each surface and prices the clean himself. There is a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for Thomas to come out or for the itemised quote he writes. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Stickland, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Winterborne Stickland?
Most repairs in Winterborne Stickland 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 Winterborne Stickland |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Winterborne Stickland. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Winterborne Stickland. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about exterior cleaning in Winterborne Stickland
Can the slippery path by the house be sorted properly?
Yes, but with a treatment rather than a wash. Algae grows down in the pores of the paving, so a jet removes the top of it and leaves the rest, which is why it is back by the following November. We wash it, let it dry, then put a biocide on and leave it alone. Under the tree cover in Winterborne Stickland that treatment is the difference between one winter of grip and three.
Does a roof clean stop the gutters blocking up?
It helps for a season and it is not the whole answer. Most of what fills a gutter in Winterborne Stickland comes off the trees, not the tiles, so clearing moss removes one source and leaves the leaf litter behind. Clear the gutters after the roof, not before, because a wash carries grit down into them.
The village is a conservation area. Does that reach the outbuildings?
It reaches anything visible. The Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area is about appearance, so cleaning a barn or a cottage roof is maintenance while re-covering it in something different is not. There are 25 listed entries in the village as well, and the older farm buildings tend to have the softest fabric. In practice we wash and treat rather than change anything, and any decision on materials stays with you and Dorset Council.
Can the garden walls and the decking be done together?
Doing them together saves setting up twice. The awkward part in Winterborne Stickland is the old walls, generally lime pointed and no place for a lance, so those are brushed and treated by hand while decking is washed at low pressure along the grain. Both appear on the quote separately from the house. If a wall has lost its coping and is taking water down the middle, that gets pointed out before washing.
What do you look at on the survey before quoting?
The state of the ridge and verge bedding, the gutter falls, whether walls are lime or cement pointed, and where the water can safely go. On a Winterborne Stickland plot that last one matters, because gardens run out to open ground and there is often no mains gully to use. Thomas Hannen does that walk round himself and writes the quote from it. Nothing is charged for the walk round or the quote that follows.
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Free site visit, free written itemised quote, and an honest word on how long the work will hold.