Exterior cleaning in Dover Heights

Clifftop suburb of large contemporary homes facing directly east over the Pacific; glass and render here weather faster than anywhere in Sydney.

1950s to 1970s brick and rendered homes, many rebuilt as large modern houses with glass balustrades facing the ocean. Around Rodney Reserve, Dudley Page Reserve and the Diamond Bay clifftop walk, on streets such as Military Road, Blake Street, Napier Street and Liverpool Street, the defining exterior problem is ocean-facing glass and render that salt-etches and blackens faster than anywhere inland.

Salt spray is the dominant force on Dover Heights exteriors. Glass hazes within weeks, render streaks under sills and fixings rust-run within a season, and black algae colonises the shaded southern walls. We schedule Dover Heights homes on quarterly glass and six to twelve-monthly soft-wash cycles rather than waiting for the grime to become visible.

Woollahra Municipal Council. Woollahra has one of the highest concentrations of heritage-listed homes and Heritage Conservation Areas in Sydney. Many properties feature original sandstone, slate and terracotta that must be cleaned with low-pressure, chemical-controlled methods. Council also enforces strict stormwater rules: wash water cannot be discharged into gutters that drain to the harbour.

Our approach in Dover Heights: We mix sodium hypochlorite, surfactant and water to a strength matched to the growth on the wall, usually 0.5 to 1.5 percent, apply it with a 12 volt soft-wash pump at under 100 psi, allow a 10 minute dwell, then rinse with fresh water from the top down. Every job is led by a named technician, carries $20 million public liability and finishes with same-day photos. Pricing is on request: we measure, test-patch any stone and send one fixed written figure.