Exterior Cleaning in Martock

Two things shape how we clean in Martock. The first is the stone. Ham stone is a shelly limestone, and it is softer than most people realise. Its weathered outer face is what gives it that colour, and once a pressure lance has taken it off, it does not come back. Older walls here are often laid in lime mortar too, which washes out of the joints just as easily. So stone in and around Martock gets a gentle, treatment-led clean: a biocide applied at low pressure that kills the algae and lichen, then time for the dead growth to weather away.

The second is the landscape. Martock sits on the low ground between Yeovil and the edge of the Levels, with the River Parrett just to the west. Mornings are often damp and misty, and walls, roofs and paving stay wet for longer than they would on higher ground. That is ideal for moss and algae. North-facing roof slopes and garden walls, and patios in the shade of a wall or tree, go green first and stay green longest.

None of that is a sign of anything wrong with the house. It is simply what happens to stone, tile and paving in a mild, damp part of Somerset, and it is all very treatable.

Roofs in the village are a real mix — clay and concrete tiles on newer houses, older roofs on the stone cottages, and farm buildings on the lanes out towards Long Load and Ash. The method stays the same on all of them. Moss is cleared by hand, never blasted off, because high pressure strips the surface from tiles and drives water under the laps. The roof then gets a low-pressure softwash and a biocide treatment, which kills the lichen and algae living in the tile so the roof stays clear for years rather than months.

Gutters and downpipes are cleared of whatever comes down during the clean as part of the job. On a damp, low-lying site like this, a blocked gutter sends water straight down the wall, and that is how stone and render end up stained in the first place. If you have been searching for roof cleaning in Martock, there is more detail on the method on our roof cleaning page.

Ham stone walls and old flagstone patios get the gentle approach described above, and if stone is already crumbling we will tell you to repair it before cleaning it rather than make it worse. Lichen on old stone is not always a problem to be solved, either; on a sound wall it does no structural harm, and sometimes the honest advice is to leave it.

Newer rendered homes are softwashed, never pressure washed. Indian sandstone and porcelain patios are cleaned at a pressure the stone can take, and block paved drives are washed back, cleared of weeds and re-sanded with kiln-dried sand so the blocks stay locked together.