Exterior Care — Wellington, NZ
Southerly exterior cleaning in Wellington. Got Grime?
The south wall has gone green, the drive is slippery by the letterbox, and there is lichen on the pitch you can only see from next door.
Eight things that grow on a Wellington house
Every one of them is the same argument: get the growth off the surface without wrecking the surface it is growing on. That is mostly a question of using less pressure than people expect, not more.
- 01 House washing The wall that has gone green. Cleaned at low pressure, so nothing is driven in behind the cladding.
- 02 Roof treatment Moss on the north pitch, treated and left to die back rather than scraped off wet.
- 03 Concrete & driveways Where the machine actually comes off the trailer. Driveways, paths, patios and steps.
- 04 Decks, fences & steps The black film that turns lethal underfoot after rain.
- 05 Gutter clear-out Emptied and flushed, plus a look at where the overflow has been running down the wall.
- 06 Graffiti removal Tags off block, brick, roller door and painted render.
- 07 Pre-paint preparation So the painter quotes for painting, not for arguing about adhesion.
- 08 Commercial & body corporate Apartment blocks, carparks, forecourts and rental portfolios on a cycle.
02 — Wellington, specifically
The southerly puts it on. The salt holds it there. The shade lets it grow. We take it off.
Four things happen to every building on a Wellington hill. The last one is the only one anybody can do much about.
Same roof, one treatment
A north-facing pitch carrying enough lichen to hide the tile, and the same roof once the treatment has done its work. Drag the handle.
Nobody books this off a description. They book it off seeing the line where the clean stops.
- Suburb
- Wadestown
- Surface
- Concrete tile, north pitch
- Method
- Treatment, no scraping
Drag · or use the arrow keys
04 — Conditions
A house here gets
weathered from
three sides.
- The southerly
- Rain here does not fall, it arrives horizontally. It drives water into the one elevation that never dries out, and that wall spends nine months as a growing medium.
- The salt
- Anywhere with a view of water is collecting salt on the cladding. It holds moisture against the surface, and it is the most common reason a paint job stops sticking early.
- The hill
- Built into a slope, half a Wellington section is in permanent shade. The bank side, the steps to the street, the path behind the garage — those are the parts that go black.
- The north pitch
- Lichen wants sun and damp together, which is what the north-facing roof pitch gives it. It is also the pitch you cannot see from your own driveway.
Four steps, and the first one is a photo
Because that is how this trade actually prices work — off what is on the wall, not off a description of it.
- 01
Send a photo
Stand back far enough to get the whole wall, roof pitch or driveway in frame. A photo of the actual grime beats any amount of describing it down the phone.
- 02
Get a written number
A price for the work in that photo, in writing, with what is included spelled out. If the photo does not show enough, you get told that rather than a number that moves later.
- 03
Pick a weather window
Booked around the forecast. There is no point washing a south wall into a southerly, and a roof treatment wants a dry stretch behind it to work.
- 04
Water, power, access
An outside tap and a power point, gates left open, cars off the drive, windows shut. Nothing needs moving that two people cannot move.
No price list on this page, because a driveway is not priced by the metre and a wall is not priced by the storey. It gets priced off what is actually on it.
Straight out of the job book
| Ref | Suburb | Job | Surface & note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2608 | Khandallah | House wash | Weatherboard, south elevationTwo storeys, shade all day, mould to the soffit line. |
| 2612 | Island Bay | Concrete | Exposed aggregate driveSalt bloom and black algae, 40m of drive and path. |
| 2617 | Wadestown | Roof treatment | Concrete tile, north pitchLichen. Treated, left to die back over the following rain. |
| 2619 | Te Aro | Graffiti | Painted block, alley sideSealed block. Tag lifted clean, no shadow left behind. |
| 2623 | Petone | Pre-paint prep | Fibre-cement, sea-facingSalt-loaded and chalked. Washed down ahead of the painter. |
| 2627 | Karori | Decks & steps | Timber steps and deckBlack film underfoot. Low pressure, grain not raised. |
Get a quote
Send the photo.
One picture of the wall, the roof or the drive, and you get a number back in writing. Wellington City, Porirua and the Hutt Valley.