Dunterton walls: method before pressure
Tamar-side parish north of Milton Abbot.
Most enquiries from Dunterton start with one elevation that has gone darker than the rest. Nine times out of ten the reason is how long that face stays damp, not how dirty it is.
Quote for a Dunterton property
Monday to Saturday, 8am – 7pm
Shade, damp and run-off
- Spores travel on the wind and land everywhere. What decides whether they take hold is whether the surface stays damp.
- Hedging planted tight to a wall cuts airflow, and still air is the same as slow drying.
- A patio laid up against a wall reflects splash onto it every time it rains hard.
- Once lichen is established it holds water itself, which makes the surface beneath it wetter than it started.
- Washing without a biocide simply resets the clock and leaves the roots in place.
- A wall shaded by its own porch roof for half the day dries at half the rate of the face beside it.
- Mild damp winters here keep growth metabolising through months that would stop it in a colder, drier county.
- Driven rain sticks to a wall face rather than running off it, which keeps the surface wet long enough for spores to settle.
- Render that has lost its water repellency absorbs and holds surface water instead of shedding it.
Dunterton at a glance
- Access is usually via A386 and A390.
- PL19 covers 5 town hubs and 12 villages or districts in our radius.
- Typical wall finish here is cob and stone, which sets the cleaning method.
- Postcode district: PL19. County: Devon. Approx 16.6 miles from the PL3 base.
- Recorded character: farming hamlet. Tamar-side parish north of Milton Abbot.
Surfaces this page is written for
- Cleaning stone reveals natural colour variation, which some owners expect to be uniform and it never is.
- Loose stones and open joints are recorded and left alone rather than washed.
- Cob and lime-finished walls are moisture-sensitive by design.
- The safest outcome on cob is a lighter, slower improvement rather than an immediate transformation.
Reading the surface
- 01The first question is whether the staining sits on the surface or has gone into the material, because only one of those cleans off.
- 02A test patch at low strength shows what the surface will do before the full elevation commits to it.
- 03How quickly a splash of water darkens the surface says how porous the finish has become.
- 04The underside of the soffit is checked, because staining there rarely stays there.
- 05Weep holes are counted and checked for blockage while the wall is being read.
- 06Nearby properties with the same finish are a useful reference for what is normal on that street.
- 07Where a wall meets a roof abutment, the flashing is looked at first.
- 08The condition of the cills tells you how much water has been running down the face.
What to book before and after the walls
Booking services out of order is the commonest reason a clean seems not to have lasted.
Fascia and soffit cleaning is folded into the wall visit rather than being priced as a separate trip.
Block paving cannot be re-sanded until it is dry, which decides the running order in a wet week.
Where only walls are being done, the gutter line is still checked, because it is the usual culprit behind the worst staining.
Before the day in Dunterton
- Say whether the elevation backs onto a public footpath.
- Note the position of the stopcock in case the outside tap needs isolating.
- Let us know if a neighbour parks under the wall on certain days.
- Say if the elevation is overlooked by a neighbouring window that should stay shut.
- Mention any cladding or timber detail that you would rather was left alone.
- Tell us if there is a low wall or a step at the base of the elevation that gets slippery.
- Say if the property has a flat roof section that we would be working above.
- Mention any glazing you already know is cracked before work starts.
Within a short run of Dunterton
Questions Dunterton owners ask
- Can you remove ivy marks?
- Suckers can be treated and weathered off, though the shadow of an old ivy run can take a season to fade fully.
- Can you treat a wall that has already been jet washed?
- Yes. The damaged band is worked at a reduced strength because it is more open than the rest.
- Do you need my electricity?
- No. Kit runs off the van.
- Do you offer a maintenance visit?
- A lighter top-up treatment every couple of years is much less work than leaving it until it is heavy again.
- What if the render is cracked?
- We will point it out and work around it. Cleaning does not fix cracks and can make them more obvious.
- Do you treat mortar joints separately?
- The method is set by the mortar because it is nearly always the softest thing on the wall.
- What about the smell for neighbours?
- Mild and short-lived, and we avoid boundary elevations when someone next door has washing out.
- What about the neighbour's side?
- We only work surfaces you own or have permission for, and we check before spraying near a boundary.
Talk to the person doing the work
The number goes to the people on the tools, not to a call centre reading a script.
Guides worth a look first
To sum up for PL19
Prep takes longer than application, and that is the right way round. Small jobs get the same sequence as large ones, just fewer elevations. A maintenance pass is far lighter work than a first clean, and it stays that way. Monday to Saturday, 8am to 7pm.