Bearwood Patio, Entry and Driveway Cleaning for Terraces and Semis
The terraces that make up most of Bearwood were laid out tight to the pavement with no off-street parking, which is why the side roads off Bearwood Road fill with cars by mid-morning. A house like that has no block-paved drive to clean. What it does have is a short front path, often in original Edwardian tile, an entry shared with next door and a small walled yard at the back, and those are what we clean on the terraces.
Two of those three are a safety matter first. The entry between two terraces is brick that stays damp all year because it never sees the sun, and it is the route every household takes to the bins after dark. The yard behind is on the same footing. Proper drives appear only on the interwar semis on the fringes, towards Lightwoods Park, Warley Woods and the Hagley Road West side where Sandwell gives way to Birmingham.
- Service
- Patio & Driveway Cleaning
- Area covered
- Bearwood, B66 and B67
- Local authority
- Sandwell
- How we do it
- Rotary flat surface cleaner at a pressure the surface can take
- From our Selly Oak base
- About 15 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (how quotes work)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
Shaded entries, walled yards and the odd proper drive
Exterior surface work in B66 and B67 comes down to shade and footfall. The entries between the terraces are overshadowed by the houses on both sides, so they hold a black-green algae film and turn slippery from November onward on the one path to the back gate. The yards behind are small and walled, and rarely catch direct sun. Where the terraces meet Hagley Road West, small front forecourts hold bins and bikes instead of cars, and collect road grime and weeds in the joints. On the semis near the parks there are ordinary drives with ordinary problems: oil, moss and faded block paving.
- Shared entries between terraces, shaded by the buildings on both sides and slippery underfoot by late autumn
- The bin route in the dark, which is what turns an entry from an appearance job into a liability for whoever owns the house
- Small walled rear yards on the terraces, usually already part occupied by a back addition and a bin standing
- Front forecourts near Hagley Road West holding bins and bikes, with road grime settled in the joints
- Proper block and concrete drives only on the interwar semis towards Lightwoods Park and Warley Woods
Brick, concrete or quarry tile, each worked around one gully
Working out what the surface is comes first, and on one Bearwood street it can change three times: blue engineering brick in an entry, poured concrete in a yard, quarry tile on an Edwardian front path, block paving on a semi round the corner. Sound concrete and engineering brick take rotary cleaning without complaint. Original tiled paths and soft lime-jointed brick do not, and get soft-washed at low pressure instead. In an enclosed yard the whole job is governed by drainage: there is one gully and nowhere else for the water to go, so we work in sections and lift the silt out rather than pushing it down the drain.
- Rotary cleaning on sound concrete and engineering brick, low-pressure soft-washing on original tiled paths
- Moss and weed taken out of the joints, since the growth in the joints is what makes an entry slippery underfoot
- Yards worked in sections around the single gully, with the displaced silt swept up and bagged for your bin
- All equipment brought in by hand through the entry, which is the reason we ask for the gate unlocked and the bins moved
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: patio & driveway cleaning across Birmingham.
Entries, yards and tiled paths across B66 and B67
On the terraces this work happens at the side and back: an entry a metre or so wide, a yard four or five metres square, a gate onto the rear. Every piece of kit is carried through by hand, so access sets the length of the visit more than square metres do. At the front, the tiled paths on the Edwardian houses off Bearwood Road are small but easy to ruin with the wrong method. Real driveway work sits on the semis towards Lightwoods Park, Warley Woods and Hagley Road West. A slot within the week is usually possible in Bearwood, autumn included.
Carrying kit down an entry to a small B66 yard
Small areas cost more per square metre than big ones, for a plain reason: setting up takes the same time for twenty square metres as for two hundred, and on a Bearwood terrace everything is carried down a narrow entry. Quoting the entry and the yard together is better value than either alone, and the front path can join the same visit. On the semis the usual variables apply: area, surface and how long it has been left. Cleaning block paving takes the jointing sand out, and re-sanding is quoted separately when the joints need it.
Each autumn for entries and yards, before the winter bin runs
A shaded entry wants doing each autumn, so the winter walk to the bins is not a hazard, and the walled rear yards run on the same annual cycle for the same reason. Forecourts by Hagley Road West can usually go two years before anybody notices. A tiled front path needs only a gentle clean every couple of years. The drives on the semis by the parks sit on one to two years, with spring the natural slot once winter growth shows.
Excellent job, highly recommended.
First time customer. Excellent service and great job. Will definitely be using them again in the future.
Nice man great at what he does
Bearwood · Patio & Driveway Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
Usually the shared entry and the back yard, and sometimes the front path. On a Bearwood terrace the entry matters most, because it is shaded all year and it is the route to the bins in the dark.
Either household can. It is a single strip of brick serving two houses, so cleaning half of it makes very little sense. If you can agree with your neighbour we will quote it as one job and do the whole strip in one visit.
Yes, it comes in by hand, which is exactly why we ask for the gate to be unlocked and the bins and bikes moved before we arrive. If the entry is gated and nobody will be home we cannot get to the back at all, and we would rather rearrange the visit than lose the slot on the doorstep.
No. High pressure lifts period path tiles and blows out the soft bedding underneath, and replacing Edwardian tiling costs far more than the clean. Those paths get soft-washed at low pressure, which takes the moss off without disturbing what holds the tiles down.
Yes, it is a standard drive clean: rotary cleaning and weeds out of the joints, with re-sanding quoted separately when the joints need it. The semis at that end of Bearwood have the deeper plots and the drives the terraces lack, and they have room to set up on the drive itself.
Other cleaning we do in Bearwood
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