Driveway and Patio Cleaning in Shrewsbury
Rotary cleaning for block paving, flags, concrete and natural stone, priced openly at £3.50 per square metre. I'm Jack, I have worked across Shropshire since 2011 and I'm based in Shrewsbury at SY3 6AP, so the van is rarely far away.
Per square metre, and what that actually buys
Driveway and patio cleaning in Shrewsbury is £3.50per m² per square metre. If you have block paving and want the joints filled properly again afterwards, re-sanding is £1.50per m² 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:
| What | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Area | The biggest part of it |
| How bad the growth is | A drive that has never been touched, or one carrying years of lichen, takes more passes than one cleaned a couple of years ago |
| Access | A walled courtyard reached through the house takes longer to set up than a drive I can pull the van straight onto |
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. It is not a stain sitting on top of the stone but a living organism rooted into the surface pores, and the black you can see is only the part above the surface.
People spend a Saturday on them with a hire washer and get nowhere, because turning the pressure up does not beat it. It strips the top skin off the slab around each spot, and you finish with:
- A pale halo
- A rougher surface that dirties faster than it did before
- The black spot still sitting there in the middle
- On sandstone, damage that does not grow back
What actually works, in this order:
- Treatment, to kill the lichen
- Time, so it loses its grip on the surface
- A controlled clean back
Shrewsbury gardens give it a good home. 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
| Tool | Used for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Rotary surface cleaner | The main open areas | An enclosed disc with jets spinning underneath, held flat to the ground, so it cleans at a constant distance and speed. That gives an even finish instead of the zebra striping of a waved lance, and keeps most of the dirty water under the disc rather than up a rendered wall or through an open kitchen window. |
| Lance | Edges, steps, kerbs and the corners a disc cannot reach | Used 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.
- Wash the surface
- Let it dry
- Brush kiln-dried sand back into the joints of block paving
Kiln-dried sand goes back into the joints once the surface has dried. This is the step cheap quotes leave out, and it matters more than the cleaning does, because that sand is structural: it locks each block against its neighbours and stops the whole field of paving moving.
Wash it out and leave the joints open, and you have:
- Weed seed sitting in every gap by spring
- 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.
| Where | The surface | How I treat it |
|---|---|---|
| Bicton, Sutton Farm, Radbrook, the edges of Bayston Hill | Nearly all concrete block paving: dense, machine pressed and built to carry a car | It takes a rotary head at full working pressure and comes back close to its original colour. These are also the drives that genuinely need the re-sand afterwards. |
| Belle Vue, Town Walls and the older streets off them | Sandstone flags, brick paviours, York stone paths and courtyards behind period houses | Sandstone is soft: grains held together, and the pressure a concrete block shrugs off lifts those grains straight out and leaves a scoured patch that stays lighter and holds dirt worse. Once it is scarred it stays scarred, so an old flag patio done at drive pressure can look worse two winters later than one nobody touched. So the pressure comes down, the disc moves slower, more of the work is done by the treatment than the water, and the lance stays well away from lime mortar pointing, which will wash out of a joint in seconds. |
| Copthorne, Shelton, Monkmoor | Concrete and tarmac drives | Their own settings again, and tarmac lower still, because tarmac will happily give up its surface chippings if you push it. |
How often, and what it costs you to leave it
| Your paving | How often |
|---|---|
| Most Shrewsbury drives | Every two to three years |
| A patio in shade, backing onto trees or facing north | Sooner, closer to every eighteen months |
| 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: it will look properly clean for the first year, then come back gradually. Nothing keeps paving spotless forever in a shaded Shropshire garden, but a proper clean and re-sand resets it and stops the damage.
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. The person who quotes the job is the person who turns up to do it.
- Cleaning exteriors across Shropshire since 2011, based in Shrewsbury at SY3 6AP
- Fully insured, domestic and commercial
- Rated 5.0 on Google from 46 reviews, with 169 recommendations on Facebook
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.
Other cleaning I do in Shrewsbury
Driveway & patio cleaning in Shrewsbury: your questions
Can I have the drive and the patio done on the same visit?
Yes, and it is the sensible way to do it. One set-up, one lot of hoses run out, one visit to work around. Both areas are measured and priced at the same £3.50 per square metre, with re-sanding at £1.50 per square metre on any block paving, and I confirm the total with you before I start.
How do you work out the square metres for a quote?
Length times width in metres, and for most drives that is as simple as pacing it out. The instant quote tool on this site asks for the same measurements. If the shape is awkward, split it into rough rectangles and add them up, or leave it to me when I look; either way the price is confirmed before work starts.
Does the drive need to be clear before you arrive?
Please, yes. Cars, bins, pots and furniture off the area if you can manage it, because anything left standing there means a patch that does not get cleaned and, on block paving, a patch that cannot be re-sanded. Anything too heavy to shift, tell me and I will work around it.
Will the black spot come back after it has been treated?
Eventually, because it is a living thing and the spores are in the air everywhere. Treated properly rather than blasted, it takes a lot longer to return than it did to come off. A shaded walled patio will go again sooner than an open drive that gets sun on it most of the day, so I will not put a number of years on it.
Do you re-sand a flagged patio as well as block paving?
No, and you should not be charged for it. The £1.50 per square metre for kiln-dried sand applies to block paving only, where the sand holds the blocks together; flags bedded on mortar do not want loose sand. If the pointing between your flags has failed I will say so, but that is repointing, not cleaning.
Driveway & patio cleaning in Shrewsbury?
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