Driveway and Patio Cleaning for Cotteridge Side Drives
Most of the 1930s semis here were built with a drive running down the side of the house to a garage, and that strip is the surface that needs the most attention here. It is narrow, it is long, and it has a house wall down one side of it for most of its length. That wall is what causes the trouble: the drive sits in shade for a large part of the day and never properly dries out between showers.
The surfaces are almost always block paving or concrete, occasionally a strip of tarmac with a concrete apron at the garage. All three green up in the joints and along the shaded edge. There is usually a rear patio too, sitting under the same mature garden tree that fills your back gutter, so it carries leaf tannin staining as well as algae. Spring is the time to tackle it, once the winter growth is obvious.
- Service
- Patio & Driveway Cleaning
- Area covered
- Cotteridge, B30
- Local authority
- Birmingham
- How we do it
- Rotary flat surface cleaner at a pressure the surface can take
- From our Selly Oak base
- About 10 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (what the quote covers)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
A shaded strip between two flank walls
Shade is the whole mechanism. A side drive running between your house and the neighbour’s flank wall gets perhaps a couple of hours of direct sun in midwinter, so algae that would die back on an open forecourt keeps growing all year round. The growth is heaviest at the garage end, well back from the road and enclosed on every side. Add block paving joints that have lost their kiln-dried sand over the years and you get weed and moss rooted in, not sitting on top. The rear patio has a different complaint: tannin from the tree above it, which is a stain and not a growth.
- A side drive shaded by your own and the neighbour’s flank wall, so algae never dries out and dies back
- The garage end greening worst, being the most enclosed part of the strip and seeing the least sun
- Kiln-dried sand washed out of block paving joints over the years, letting moss and weed root into them
- Oil and tyre marks concentrated at the top of the drive where the same car has stood for years
- Rear patios under a mature garden tree, carrying leaf tannin staining on top of the algae
Working along a narrow drive without soaking the render
We check the surface before anything is switched on, because the drive and the rear patio are often not the same material. Sound concrete and block paving get rotary pressure cleaning, worked along the length of the strip, not in arcs, so a narrow drive comes up evenly and without banding. Anything running against a rendered flank wall is done at reduced pressure, since forcing water into render at the base of a wall is how a cleaning job turns into a damp job. Tannin on the patio is treated chemically instead of blasted.
- Rotary cleaning worked along the length of a narrow side drive, so there is no banding across it
- Pressure reduced where the drive runs against the rendered flank wall, to keep water out of the render
- Joints cleared of rooted moss and weed, with re-sanding quoted separately where the joints need it
- Leaf tannin on the rear patio treated with chemistry, because pressure will not shift it
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: how we do patio & driveway cleaning, step by step.
Side drives, garage aprons and back patios
Spring is the season, and one clean drive on a Cotteridge street is highly visible to everyone else living on it. We work the roads between Cotteridge Park and Watford Road and out towards the canal, where the gardens are long and the patios sit well away from the house. A full job here covers the side drive, the apron in front of the garage doors, the path round to the back door and the patio itself. Doing all four in one visit is far better value than calling us back for the patio in July.
Edges, green garage ends and re-sanding: pricing a side drive
Area and condition, with a Cotteridge twist: a side drive has far more edge per square metre than an open forecourt, and edges are handwork. A drive cleaned within the last two years is quick. One that has been green for a decade at the garage end may want a second pass, and we would rather quote that up front than leave you looking at a strip that is clean at the road and grey at the garage. On block paving the joints need re-sanding afterwards or the blocks work loose under a car, and that is quoted separately when the joints need it.
Yearly for the shaded end, two years for the open front
Every year for the shaded stretch of a side drive, because permanent shade means the algae is back within twelve months however well it came up. The open section nearer the road is usually fine at every two years. Rear patios under a tree want doing annually as well, timed for spring so last autumn’s tannin has not had another season to set into the slabs. Spring is the natural slot for all of it.
I’m very satisfied with the service I get
Nice man great at what he does
Charles was great. He was very professional and did a great job.
Cotteridge · Patio & Driveway Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
Shade and still air. That end of the strip is enclosed by your house on one side, the neighbour’s wall on the other and the garage in front, so it gets the least sun and the least air movement of any surface on the property. Algae survives there in conditions that would kill it on an open drive.
Yes, if you want it to last. Cleaning takes the kiln-dried sand out of the joints, and blocks with nothing between them begin to rock and drift apart once a car drives over them. Re-sanding is quoted separately when the joints need it, so you have the figure at quoting stage.
It can, which is exactly why we drop the pressure where the drive runs against it. Rendered and pebbledashed flank walls on these houses are unforgiving: force water in at the base and you get a damp patch inside that outlasts your clean drive by years.
Usually a big improvement, sometimes completely. Fresh oil comes up well. Oil that has soaked into porous concrete over a decade of the same car parking on the same spot will lighten a great deal rather than disappear, and we will say which one you have before you pay.
Yes, and it makes sense to. We are already set up at the back of the property for the drive, and a patio under a garden tree needs different treatment for the tannin staining in any case. Doing both on one visit saves you a second booking.
Other cleaning we do in Cotteridge
Tell us about the job
Send a few details or photos and we’ll come back with a clear price and an estimated time, with no obligation.