Driveway & Patio Cleaning in Shirley

Road grit at the front, shade and moss at the back

Two things drive this work and they sit at opposite ends of the same property. At the front, drives facing the Stratford Road pick up road grit and an oily traffic film brought in off the A34, both on tyres and straight off the carriageway, which darkens block paving evenly and dulls it in a way that plain moss never does. A drive on a quiet avenue two streets back stays lighter for years by comparison. At the rear, the deep shaded plots that make these gardens pleasant keep patios damp for most of the year, so algae and leaf tannin do the damage there instead. The two ends want different treatment.

• Multi-car block paving with a very long run of jointing, which is where the moss actually lives
• Mature front trees standing over the drive, keeping the joints shaded and damp all year
• Road grit and oily film carried onto Stratford Road frontage drives, dulling the blocks evenly
• Shaded rear patios on deep plots, where algae and leaf tannin make a real slip hazard
• Kiln-dried sand lost from the joints over the years, so blocks begin to move underfoot

Rotary cleaner on the blocks, then the joints line by line

Block paving is cleaned under a rotary flat surface cleaner, which keeps pressure even and avoids the striping you get from a wand swung by hand. The joints are then worked deliberately, one line at a time, because on a shaded Shirley drive that is where the growth is rooted and where it will regrow from. Oil, from the road and from parked cars, is treated with a degreaser before the main pass. Rear patios and anything running against render get low-pressure soft-washing instead. Displaced sand and silt are collected up, never swept into your border.

• Rotary flat surface cleaner across the blocks for an even finish, with joints then worked individually
• Degreaser on road film and engine oil before the main pass, since pressure alone spreads it about
• Kiln-dried sand re-laid where the joints need it, quoted separately and agreed before we start
• Low-pressure soft-wash on shaded rear patios and anywhere paving runs against render

More detail on the equipment and the order of work: how we do patio & driveway cleaning, step by step.

A Shirley drive is a bigger job than it looks

The season starts once winter growth has properly declared itself. Detached houses on the deeper plots set back from the Stratford Road are the biggest jobs here, frequently a drive, a side path, a rear patio and a garage apron in one go. Frontage drives on the main road are dulled by road film more than moss, and they come up by a different route. At Parkgate it is communal parking and shared footpaths, quoted to the managing agent.

Why a Shirley drive under a tree is priced on its joints

Area and condition set the price, quoted fixed from photographs or a look at the drive. The warning in Shirley concerns jointing: a multi-car block drive under a mature tree gets priced against the run of joints as much as the square metres, because getting growth out of them is what makes the result survive longer than a month. Re-sanding is quoted separately where the joints need it, since washing block paving pulls the jointing sand out and the blocks lose their grip on each other without it. Bringing the drive, the windows, the gutters and the conservatory into one appointment gets the whole exterior done together.

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Every year or two, sooner where a tree overhangs the blocks

One to two years for most block drives here, at the shorter end where a mature tree stands over the paving and holds damp in the joints. Shaded rear patios come round closer to annually, and where people cross one through the winter that is about not falling over, before it is about looks. Frontage drives on the Stratford Road are a dulling problem more than a growth problem, so they tend to get booked when the greyness starts to irritate you, whatever the calendar says.