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 make a mat that water runs straight across, and on a low roof the overflow lands on the wall rather than clear of it, so every outlet and downpipe is flushed until it can be seen taking water. 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.

No rate per square metre, because the same square metre can be twenty minutes or two. Access decides most of it: a single storey house on an open plot is straightforward pole work, a chalet bungalow with dormers wants a bit more thought, and a long shingle drive with a gate at the end means hose runs and kit carried rather than parked next to. work at height rules decide when a tower replaces a pole. Timber and painted render want low pressure and time. Ask each quote what method goes on each surface, whether a second visit is included, and where the water goes.

We cover Woodlands, Netley Marsh, Ashurst, Bartley and Cadnam on SO40 and out across the northern Forest, with the New Forest National Park Authority as the local planning authority for this address. 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.