Professional Driveway & Patio Cleaning in Manchester

City drives: grime as well as green

Manchester gets less rain than the hill towns, closer to 870mm a year, but city drives carry a heavier load of traffic film and airborne grime on top of the usual algae.

That oily deposit bonds to the surface and gives algae something to grip, so the two feed each other. It is why a quick hose down achieves almost nothing on a Manchester drive.

The result is often a drive that looks grey and tired rather than obviously green, and needs both the deposit and the growth dealing with.

Trees are the other half of the story

South Manchester is full of mature street trees, and Didsbury, Chorlton, Withington and Whalley Range get the full effect: shade, months of leaf litter, and tannin dripping onto whatever is below.

Leaf litter left on a drive over winter rots down into the joints and makes a perfect bed for moss. Tannin staining from the leaves themselves is not organic growth and will not respond to treatment in the same way, which is worth knowing before anyone promises you a spotless finish.

Tree-shaded drives want doing annually rather than every other year.

The surfaces across the city

Victorian and Edwardian properties often have original stone flags, York stone and setts, which clean up very well and must never be blasted.

The interwar semis are mostly concrete flags and tarmac, much of it original. Tarmac wants low pressure or the bitumen lifts.

Newer townhouses and converted plots are block paved, which is the standard clean plus resanding with kiln-dried sand afterwards.

Access and parking

Access is the thing that shapes a Manchester job. Terraced streets with no rear access, narrow entries, permit parking and neighbours on both sides all affect how the work gets done.

We sort it at survey stage, including where the van can sit and how far we are running hoses. It affects the time and therefore the price, and it is far better agreed beforehand.

An even finish on a city drive

Rotary surface cleaner across the whole area for consistency, lance only for edges and spot work. Stripes from lance-only work are permanent, because they are a difference in surface removal.

On stone flags and setts, the lance is kept off the joints entirely so the pointing survives.

Resanding and treating

Block paving gets kiln-dried sand back in the joints, every time. Without it the blocks rock, water gets into the sub-base and the joints fill with moss and seed.

The whole surface is treated after cleaning to kill what is left in the joints and pores, which slows regrowth considerably through the following year.

Drainage and standing water

Gullies and channels are cleared as part of the job. In the city a lot of drives drain to a single gully that also takes a downpipe, and when it blocks the water goes across the drive instead.

Standing water means the same patch goes green first every year and freezes first every winter. Usually the fix is clearing the gully rather than anything structural.

Price and combining work

Area, surface, how much traffic film there is, access, and whether it needs resanding or sealing. Access carries more weight here than anywhere else we work.

Fixed price in writing before we start. Combining the drive with the roof and gutters in one visit is meaningfully cheaper in the city, because access and set-up is most of the cost.