Driveway and Patio Cleaning in Shrewsbury

Per square metre, and what that actually buys

Driveway and patio cleaning in Shrewsbury is £3.50 per square metre. If you have block paving and want the joints filled properly again afterwards, re-sanding is £1.50 per square metre on top of that.

• Cleaning any hard surface: £3.50 per square metre
• Re-sanding block paving with kiln-dried sand: £1.50 per square metre
• The figure is confirmed with you before any water hits the ground

What moves the price is the surface, not the postcode. Area is the biggest part of it, then how bad the growth has got, then access, because a walled courtyard reached through the house takes longer to set up than a drive I can pull the van straight onto. A drive that has never been touched, or one carrying years of lichen, takes more passes than one cleaned a couple of years ago.

I would rather tell you that on the quote than on the invoice. If I look at your paving and think it needs something other than a clean, I will say so at the point of quoting rather than after. Nothing gets added on at the end.

Black spot is not dirt, and pressure will not shift it

Those flat black dots that sit dead level with the slab and refuse to budge are lichen. People spend a Saturday on them with a hire washer and get nowhere, because it is not a stain sitting on top of the stone. It is a living organism rooted into the surface pores, and the black you can see is only the part above the surface.

Turning the pressure up does not beat it. It strips the top skin off the slab around each spot, so you finish with a pale halo, a rougher surface that dirties faster than it did before, and the black spot still sitting there in the middle. On sandstone, that damage does not grow back.

What actually works is treatment, then time, then a controlled clean. The lichen has to be killed and given a while to lose its grip before the surface is cleaned back, which on a badly affected patio means the job is not always finished in one hit. Anyone quoting a Shrewsbury patio who never says the words black spot or lichen has not really looked at it.

Shrewsbury gardens give it a good home. Plenty of the older properties around Belle Vue, Town Walls and Meole Brace have small walled courtyards, high boundary walls and mature planting standing above them, and a north-facing patio in a yard like that can go the best part of a year without direct sun landing on it. Paving that never fully dries stays damp enough for lichen and algae to keep working right through the winter, which is why two patios on the same street can be years apart in condition.

How I clean it, and why the sand goes back in

The main tool is a rotary surface cleaner rather than a lance. A rotary head is an enclosed disc with jets spinning underneath it, held flat to the ground, so it cleans at a constant distance and a constant speed. That is what gives an even finish instead of the zebra striping you get when somebody waves a lance across a drive and misses a strip. It also keeps most of the dirty water under the disc rather than firing it up a rendered wall or through an open kitchen window.

The lance still comes out, but only for edges, steps, kerbs and the corners a disc cannot reach, at a pressure chosen for whatever it is pointed at. Plants, doors and air bricks get covered or worked around before I start, and the waste water is directed sensibly on site.

Kiln-dried sand then goes back into the joints of block paving once the surface has dried. This is the step cheap quotes leave out, and it matters more than the cleaning does. That sand is structural. It is what locks each block against its neighbours and stops the whole field of paving moving. Wash it out, walk away and leave the joints open, and you have weed seed sitting in every gap by spring and blocks starting to rock and dip where the car tyres turn.

It has to be kiln-dried rather than building sand, because it is bone dry and graded fine enough to pour right down the joint and lock tight. Damp sand bridges at the top and leaves the bottom of the joint empty, which looks finished and is not. It goes in dry, gets worked across the whole area, and gets topped up wherever the joints have swallowed more than expected.

Block paving on the estates, sandstone in the old town

Shrewsbury hides two completely different jobs under one search term, and the difference between them is pressure.

Out on the newer estates, Bicton, Sutton Farm, Radbrook and the edges of Bayston Hill, it is nearly all concrete block paving. Those blocks are dense, machine pressed and built to carry a car, and they will take a rotary head at full working pressure and come back close to their original colour. They are also the drives that genuinely need the re-sand afterwards.

Nearer the middle of town, around Belle Vue, Town Walls and the older streets off them, you are far more likely to be standing on sandstone flags, brick paviours, York stone paths and courtyards behind period houses. Sandstone is soft. It is grains held together, and the same pressure a concrete block shrugs off will lift those grains straight out and leave a scoured patch that stays lighter and holds dirt worse than the stone around it. Once it is scarred it stays scarred. That is why an old flag patio done by somebody working at drive pressure can look worse two winters later than one nobody ever touched.

So on the soft stuff the pressure comes down, the disc moves slower, more of the work is done by the treatment than by the water, and the lance is kept well away from lime mortar pointing, which will wash out of a joint in seconds. Concrete and tarmac drives around Copthorne, Shelton and Monkmoor get their own settings again, tarmac lower still, because tarmac will happily give up its surface chippings if you push it.

Access is worth mentioning when you ring. Plenty of the town-centre courtyards are reached through the house or down a narrow side passage, and knowing that beforehand means the right kit turns up.

How often, and what it costs you to leave it

Most Shrewsbury drives are happy on every two to three years. A patio sitting in shade, backing onto trees or facing north wants it sooner, closer to every eighteen months. If yours goes green over one wet winter, that is your answer, and no schedule is going to argue with it.

Leaving it is not only a looks problem. Algae on a smooth flag in October is genuinely slippery, and the calls I get in autumn are usually from somebody who has just had a near miss on their own back step. In block paving, weeds and moss force the joints open, water sits where the sand should be, and blocks begin to rock. Relaying a sunken section is a far bigger job than cleaning one.

Honest expectations on how long it lasts: it will look properly clean for the first year, then come back gradually. Nothing keeps paving spotless forever in a shaded Shropshire garden. What a proper clean and re-sand does is reset it and stop the damage, so you stay in the business of cleaning your paving rather than replacing it.

If the drive is booked in, it is worth having the patio looked at on the same quote, since the kit is already set up and it saves a second visit. Same if the render or a conservatory roof needs attention while I am there, although soft washing is a different method at low pressure and is priced separately.

Who you are dealing with

TD Exterior Cleaning is run by me, Jack. I have been cleaning exteriors across Shropshire since 2011 and I am based in Shrewsbury at SY3 6AP. Fully insured, domestic and commercial. The person who quotes the job is the person who turns up to do it.

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Two ways to get a price: use the instant online quote tool on this site, or ring or text me on 07854 086820. I confirm the price with you before any work starts.