Hall Green Conservatory Roof Cleaning Under Garden Canopy
Conservatories went onto the back of these interwar houses in waves through the 1990s and 2000s, which puts most of them somewhere between twenty and thirty years old now. That is precisely long enough under a garden canopy for the roof to have gone properly green, the frames to have weathered grey and the seals to have begun perishing at the corners.
The before and after is dramatic, and the reason goes beyond looks. A green roof is a roof that has stopped letting light through. Take the algae off and the room brightens by a degree people do not expect, and a conservatory which had quietly become a store for bikes and a dead exercise machine can go back to being a room.
- Service
- Conservatory Cleaning
- Area covered
- Hall Green, B28
- Local authority
- Birmingham
- How we do it
- Soft wash on the roof, no pressure on seals or polycarbonate
- From our Selly Oak base
- About 15 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (common questions)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
Garden canopy, baked-on tannin and silt from the gutter above
The tree canopy is why B28 roofs green up so quickly. Long back gardens carrying ninety years of planting, plus street trees at the front, put most conservatories here underneath something, and what lands is not only algae. Sap and leaf tannin bake over the top of the growth through summer, and wherever the house gutter above overflows it sheets silt straight down the panels. On the north and east-facing rears the panels barely dry out between October and March. The frames weather in parallel: uPVC that was white in 2001 has gone chalky, and the seals at the glazing bar junctions are twenty years past their best.
- Roofs sitting beneath ninety years of garden planting on long B28 plots, with street trees at the front as well
- Sap and leaf tannin setting over the algae through summer, which needs longer dwell than algae on its own
- Silt washed down the panels every time a blocked house gutter overflows directly above them
- North and east-facing rear elevations where the panels barely dry out between October and March
- Chalky twenty-year-old uPVC frames, and seals at the glazing bar junctions well past their design life
Soft wash with a long dwell, and frames and ridge by hand
Soft-wash throughout, on glass and polycarbonate alike. Solution goes onto the roof, is given time to break down the algae and the tannin layer sitting over it, then is rinsed away with pure water. Nothing is pressure washed: high pressure scratches polycarbonate, drives water past a perished seal and can crack a glazing bar that has gone brittle with age. Frames, bars, finials and the ridge are cleaned by hand for whatever material they are made of. The conservatory gutter is cleared and flushed on the same visit, because on these houses it sits under branches and is already full.
- Low-pressure soft-wash on the panels with dwell time for the tannin layer lying over the algae
- A second application where a roof has been green five years or more, quoted before we start
- Frames, glazing bars, ridge and finials cleaned by hand, with any perished seal reported rather than covered over
- Conservatory gutter cleared and flushed as part of the job, since it fills faster than the house run above it
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: the full conservatory cleaning process.
Getting a room back, not just a clean roof
Conservatories sit right across B28, from the avenues behind the Stratford Road through to the quieter roads towards Sarehole Mill, the Cole and the Shirley boundary. Spring is the natural time, so the room is clear and bright before summer, and it pairs well with the gutter clear directly above on the same visit. Side access on these long plots can be tight, so tell us the gate width when you book and we bring the right hose runs, so nobody finds out on the day that the hose cannot get down the side.
Size, roof material and the years since it was last done
Size, roof material and years since the last clean set the price. A regularly done lean-to is quick. A large Victorian-style conservatory on one of the avenues that has been green since about 2018 takes far longer and often wants a second application, so photographs help us more than a description can. One limit applies: polycarbonate that has yellowed will still be yellow afterwards. Yellowing is UV degradation of the panel material itself, not dirt sitting on the surface, and no clean reverses it. The green comes off completely, the yellow does not, and we will tell you which one you have at the quote.
Spring and autumn under trees, once a year in an open garden
Twice a year for anything under a garden canopy, which describes most of Hall Green: spring for the light, autumn to take the leaf and sap load off before winter. Once a year is genuinely enough for a conservatory in an open rear garden with nothing overhanging it, and a few B28 houses do have exactly that. The gutter wants the shorter interval regardless, because it fills and starts overflowing long before the roof begins to look bad.
First time customer. Excellent service and great job. Will definitely be using them again in the future.
Excellent job, highly recommended.
I’m very satisfied with the service I get
Hall Green · Conservatory Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
Almost certainly. Years of algae comes off with soft-washing, and the difference is usually striking. A roof left that long often needs a second application of solution, which we quote at the start so nothing changes halfway through.
The green is; the amber is not. On a 1990s or 2000s polycarbonate roof under B28 garden trees, that amber is the sheet itself aged by sunlight, and nothing on the surface can be washed off to change it. Once the algae and tannin have gone, any amber sheets stand out clearly, and replacing those is work for a conservatory installer.
No. Soft-washing is how we avoid exactly that. High pressure at a twenty-year-old glazing bar junction forces water past the seal and creates the leak people are worried about. Low pressure with cleaning solution lifts the algae chemically instead. If a seal has already perished we will show you, but the clean will not have been what did it.
Usually yes, and it is well worth mentioning at booking. The pole and hose reach where a ladder and a bucket cannot, and on the long plots here we can often work most of the roof from within the garden itself. What we want to avoid is turning up with the wrong hose length and having to come back another day.
Yes, on request, and it is quoted separately because it needs different access. It makes a bigger difference than people expect on a conservatory that has never had it done, since twenty years of cobweb and dead fly along the internal glazing bars is doing its own share of blocking the light.
Other cleaning we do in Hall Green
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