Exterior cleaning in Woodlands

Low roofs, and a lot of them. About a third of the housing here is single storey and over 40% of it is detached, most of it put up from the late 1950s onwards, so the common covering is concrete interlocking tile with clay plain tile and slate on the older properties.

A bungalow gives you the same floor area under roughly twice the roof, and more ridge, hip and verge per household than anywhere else: more surface to grow on and more edge to keep clear, but low enough that a roof clean here rarely needs more than poles. Moss packs into the lap where each course covers the one below and starts pushing water sideways under the tile. The bulk comes off dry, scraped and brushed from the ridge down, then a soft wash and a biocide so the spores in the tile face die instead of being rinsed into the gutter. Slate takes no jet wash at all, because the force lifts the lap and works at the fixings.

A lot of the post-war housing here is rendered or pebbledashed and then painted, and the older brickwork behind the trees is softer than it looks with lime in the joints. Painted render is the surface people most often ruin: too much pressure lifts the paint film in sheets and what starts as a clean turns into a full redecoration. It gets a soft wash nozzle at low pressure and a biocide, and the grey and black freckling is lichen that keeps fading for weeks after the van has gone.

Timber, which there is a lot of. Garages, stables, field shelters, workshops, weatherboarded outbuildings, post and rail, decking and pergolas. Under a canopy all of it goes green on the north side and decking is the most slippery thing on most of these plots. Timber takes low pressure and a treatment: hold a lance too close and you fur the grain up, and furred timber greens back faster than it did before. Painted fascia, soffit and bargeboard get the same care for the same reason.

Plenty of block paving and slab, and a great deal of gravel and shingle, which is the one nobody warns you about: you cannot pressure wash loose stone, you can only treat it, rake it and top it up, so if a firm has quoted to jet wash your shingle drive, ask what they think will happen to it. Block paving takes a rotary surface cleaner and then has to be re-sanded, because the wash pulls the kiln dried sand out of the joints along with the weed. Oak leaf, acorns and small twigs mat in the gutters, and on a low roof the overflow lands on the wall, which is why a gutter clear in Woodlands comes before the wall wash. Drains and any gully get covered before it starts, planting and hedge lines are sheeted and watered down, and anything approved for the surface goes on at the strength printed on the label. The nearest watercourse is a few tens of metres away, so where the run off ends up is agreed first.

The same square metre can take twenty minutes or two hours, depending on what is on it and how you reach it.

Height and reach. A single storey bungalow on an open plot is straightforward pole work from the ground. A chalet bungalow with dormers takes more thought, and a two storey detached house may want a tower, and the work at height rules decide when a tower replaces a pole.

Water and access. A long shingle drive with a gate at the end means long hose runs and kit carried in. We need an outside tap, and on a slope the run off must be kept out of drains and ditches.

Surface and growth. Timber cladding and painted render need low pressure and time. Block paving under trees can hold a thick mat of moss and weeds in the joints, which then need re-sanding.

A second visit. Biocide keeps working after the first wash, and some surfaces only come fully clean after a follow up visit a few weeks later, once the growth has died back and loosened.

Ask each quote what method goes on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the water goes.

Our cleaning area takes in SO40, from Woodlands itself to Cadnam, Bartley, Ashurst and Netley Marsh on the eastern edge of the Forest. Woodlands is 17.8 miles from our base on Wolverton Road, Boscombe, and the National Park Authority is the local planning authority for the address, with the district council for building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd holds company number 15471719 on the England and Wales register. Thomas Hannen owns the firm and comes out himself to look at the surfaces and price the clean. A verified customer gave us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free. Before you book a visit in Woodlands, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Woodlands 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.