I am one bloke with a van and a good machine

The honest history

I did this work properly for about eighteen months, starting in the spring of 2020. Mostly in Surrey to begin with, then across into East Sussex, around Heathfield and Burwash, through the autumn of 2021.

Then I stopped. Life got in the way, as it does, and the machine sat in a garage for four years.

I have moved back to Seaford and I am doing it again, and this time I am doing it properly rather than as something that grew out of a favour for a neighbour. That means published prices, written quotes, and a website that tells you what I can and cannot do before you ring.

Every photograph on this site is from that earlier work. None of them are Seaford jobs and I am not going to caption them as though they were. As I do local work it will replace them.

What I actually know

Enough to know how much damage this equipment can do. Most of what I have learned since is about using less pressure rather than more, and about which problems are not cleaning problems at all.

Black spot lichen will not blast off, and trying takes the face off your paving. Efflorescence is not dirt and washing it makes it worse. A drive that has settled needs a groundworker, not me. Roofs should never see a pressure washer. Tarmac usually should not either. Those are the four conversations I have most often and all four of them lose me work.

What I cannot do

I do not treat weeds. Applying herbicide commercially requires PA1 and PA6 certificates which I have not got yet. So I will not advertise weed treatment, and I will not quietly do it anyway on the day. Cleaning removes what is growing now and re-sanding makes it much harder for the next seed to establish. If you want the ground genuinely treated, you want somebody qualified.

I do not lay or repair paving. I do not oil or stain decking. I do not clean roofs from on top of them without proper access equipment.

I have no trade association memberships, no awards and no accreditations, and there are no badges on this website because I have not earned any. When that changes, they will go on, and not before.

Why the prices are published

Out of roughly twenty firms working this stretch of coast, two put a price anywhere on their website. The rest want you to ring so they can size the job, and the house, and you, before committing to a number.

Publishing the rate means I cannot charge the house with the new car on the drive more than the one without. It also means you can work out roughly what your job costs at eleven o'clock at night without speaking to anybody, which is how I would want to buy something.

How I work

You send photographs and a rough size. I send a fixed price in writing that says what is included and how long I expect to be there. If the job turns out bigger than I judged, the price stays where it is, because that was my judgement to get right.

I do not take deposits on domestic work, I do not ask for cash, and there is nothing to pay if you are not happy with what I have done.