Rubery Driveway Cleaning That Takes the Whole Frontage at Once
Rubery was built around the car. The 1960s and 70s developers put a drive and a garage on very nearly every plot here, which is why nearly every house here has a frontage of hard surface to look after. The surfaces are of their time and of the decades since: original in situ concrete with expansion joints, block paving laid over it in the 1990s and 2000s, and older tarmac that has gone soft and grey at the edges. Each one wants a different machine setting.
The site does the rest. This is high, open ground on the western fringe below the Lickeys, so drives here stay damp longer than a sheltered street nearer the city centre and the moss gets going along the edges and the shaded flank first. Down the middle sits the opposite problem: oil and tyre marks off a garage that has been in use for fifty years, sitting in porous concrete that has been drinking it in the whole time.
- Service
- Patio & Driveway Cleaning
- Area covered
- Rubery, B45
- Local authority
- Birmingham and Bromsgrove
- How we do it
- Rotary flat surface cleaner at a pressure the surface can take
- From our Selly Oak base
- About 20 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (what the quote covers)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
Green edges, a stained apron and a wet bottom end
A Rubery frontage goes wrong in three distinct places and they need different treatment. The edges and the shaded flank grow moss and algae, fed by exposure and slow drying, with little help from tree cover. The middle carries oil, tyre rubber and the dark polish where the car sits. And the joints, on block paving, lose their kiln-dried sand and fill with weed instead. On top of that a good number of these plots slope, because the ground climbs towards the Lickeys, so silt and growth wash down to the bottom of the drive and the apron collects it. A single pressure setting run over all of that will damage at least one part of it.
- Moss and algae along drive edges and the shaded flank, fed by damp exposed ground
- Oil and tyre marks in the middle, from garages and aprons in daily use since the houses were built
- Kiln-dried sand washed out of block paving joints, with weed growing in its place
- Older tarmac that lifts and pits if it is hit with the pressure sound concrete will take
- Sloping plots on the streets climbing towards the Lickeys, where silt collects at the bottom and on the apron
Rotary cleaning on concrete, a lighter touch on old tarmac
The surface gets identified before a machine is started, because the wrong setting is expensive and permanent. Solid concrete and block paving take rotary cleaning at full working pressure. Older tarmac is cut right back, since high pressure strips the binder and leaves it pitted. Anywhere the drive or patio runs up against render or pebbledash we drop to a soft wash at the junction and keep full pressure off a wall that is already taking wind-driven rain from the west. Joints are cleared, and re-sanding is quoted separately where they need it, settled at the quote instead of sprung on you later, and displaced silt is collected, never flushed into the road.
- Surface named first: in situ concrete, block paving and tired tarmac each get their own pressure
- Soft wash only where the surface meets render or pebbledash, to keep water out of the wall
- Oil, tyre marks and the parked car polish treated as separate stains, not left to general washing
- Re-sanding quoted separately where the block paving joints need it, agreed at the quoting stage
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: how we do patio & driveway cleaning, step by step.
Drives, aprons and paths across B45
A Rubery frontage usually comes in one shape: a two-car drive, a garage apron and a path to the front door, plus a rear patio if there is one. We would rather price the whole frontage in one go, because the setup and the water are the same whether we clean two thirds of it or all of it, and a bright drive next to a green path looks worse than leaving both. Access here is unusually good: wide roads, off street parking and space to bring the machine and bowser right to the work. Spring is the natural time to book, as soon as the winter growth is visible from the pavement.
Surface and state decide the time on a B45 frontage
The price comes off area and state, but the surface sets the method and the method sets the time. A block drive that was done two years ago is a quick morning. A concrete drive and apron that have been green along the edges for five years take longer and may want a treatment as well as a wash. Two points to know before you commit. Old oil absorbed by unsealed concrete lightens a great deal without vanishing, and on a garage apron that has been in use since the sixties that matters. And where washing leaves block paving joints short of sand, re-sanding is quoted separately, so it is in the quote from the start.
Every year or two, yearly on shaded and sloping ground
One clean every year or two suits most Rubery drives. Make it annual for the shaded flank, the north-facing path and anything on a slope where run-off keeps the bottom end wet, because on this exposed ground algae returns faster than it does in the sheltered streets closer to town. Steps and a sloping path are a safety interval, not an appearance one. Spring is the natural booking window.
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.
Rubery · Patio & Driveway Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
No. Tarmac that has been down since the seventies has lost binder at the surface, and a rotary head at working pressure pits it and lifts the chippings. We clean it back on a much reduced setting, which improves it considerably without wrecking it, and if it has passed the point where washing helps, you will hear that from us.
It lightens substantially and recent oil often goes altogether. What will not fully lift is fifty years of it soaking into unsealed concrete, because at that point the stain is inside the slab rather than on it. We treat it separately from the general wash and show you the difference before you decide whether it is worth the extra time.
Only if we back it off at the junction, which we do. Driving water at a rendered or pebbledashed wall at the base is how a clean turns into a damp patch inside, and on this exposed western side those walls are already taking more wind-driven rain than most. We soft wash the last stretch where the surface meets the wall.
Fresh kiln-dried sand, brushed back in where the joints need it and quoted separately. Washing lifts some sand from between the blocks, and once too much has gone they start to rock and spread, so we raise it at the quote and you decide with the price in front of you.
Yes, that is how we prefer to quote in Rubery. Setting up the machine and the water takes the same time regardless, so adding the apron and the path to a drive clean costs far less than booking them separately. Tell us if there is a rear patio too and it goes in the same figure.
Other cleaning we do in Rubery
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