Exterior cleaning in Looe
Looe is a working harbour town facing the open Channel, about nineteen miles from us. Fishermen's cottages, Victorian terraces and holiday lets are mostly painted lime render and stone under Cornish slate.
Many of the properties here are let, so we are used to arranging work around guests and changeover days.
Gull fouling is an actual cleaning category here
Nowhere else we work has the volume of gull droppings that the harbour villages do. It is acidic, it stains painted render permanently if it is left, and it comes back within weeks in season.
Regular washing of the affected elevations is the only thing that stops it etching in. It is unglamorous and it makes a visible difference.
Streets that predate vehicles
In Polperro and around East and West Looe the property is often a walk from the nearest parking. We plan for hose runs and hand-carried kit, and we work early before the streets fill up in summer.
Painted stone and repainting cycles
The white and pastel fronts here are paint over stone or lime render. Cleaning extends the life of a paint job considerably, and washing before repainting is worth far more than an extra coat.
Questions from Looe
- Can gull staining be removed completely?
- If it is caught early, yes. Once it has etched into the paint film, cleaning improves it but repainting is the real fix.
- How do you work in Polperro where there is no vehicle access?
- On foot with hose from the nearest parking, and early in the day during the season.
- Is it worth cleaning before we repaint the front?
- Very much so. Paint applied over salt and biological growth fails early.