Heathfield Driveway & Patio Cleaning

Heathfield sits high on the ridge of the High Weald, and altitude turns out to matter more than I expected when I first started working up here.

It is the highest ground I cover, roughly 150 metres above sea level against Seaford’s near-zero. That brings cooler temperatures, more cloud, more rainfall and a slower drying regime than anywhere on the coast. Combined with heavy clay and a lot of mature tree cover, the result is the thickest moss growth I deal with anywhere.

Moss you can lift in sheets

On the coast, growth on paving is mostly algae: a thin film, a few cells thick, that comes off in the first pass.

Up here it is moss, and moss is a plant with structure. On a shaded north-facing Heathfield drive it can be five or ten millimetres thick and dense enough to peel up in sheets.

Trying to remove that with a jet washer is a waste of everybody’s morning. The water cuts a channel through it and throws it around without lifting the mat, and you spend an hour effectively mowing.

So I scrape first. A blade or a stiff brush takes the bulk off, and it goes into bags rather than into your borders. Only then does the surface cleaner go on, and at that point it is doing what it is designed for, which is cleaning paving rather than removing vegetation.

That step is included. What it does change is the time, and on a large mossy drive it can push a job from one day into two, which I will tell you when I quote rather than discovering it on the day.

Clay, height and a short drying window

The ground here is High Weald clay, slow draining and slow to dry, and the extra altitude means less sun and more time in cloud.

Practically, an autumn or winter job at Heathfield will almost always be a two-visit job: clean one day, return to re-sand when the surface is dry enough for the sand to run. Trying to sand a damp joint gives you a joint that is full at the top and hollow underneath, which is worse than not sanding at all because it looks finished.

In June and July the same drive might be ready the same afternoon. The seasonal spread here is wider than anywhere else I work.

Long drives, converted buildings and awkward surfaces

The housing around Heathfield is country stock: converted farm buildings, detached houses on an acre, long approach drives in gravel or block.

Converted agricultural buildings frequently have surfaces I need to look at carefully before quoting. Old concrete yards that have spalled. Brick setts laid a century ago. Stone thresholds worn into hollows. These are not standard patio jobs and I would rather see photographs than assume.

The photographs on this site

Several of the before and after pairs in my gallery are from jobs around Heathfield and Burwash in autumn 2021, which is the last stretch of work I did before stopping and then moving back to Seaford.

They are all genuine, none of them have been retouched or generated, and I caption them by surface rather than by place. Implying they were Seaford jobs would be untrue, and the honest version is more useful to you anyway: what you are looking at is thick Wealden moss on block paving, which is exactly what a Heathfield drive looks like.

Scheduling

Heathfield is 20 miles and about 36 minutes from Seaford, at the outer edge of what I cover. The rate is the same and there is no travel charge, but I try to group jobs out this way, so I may offer you a particular week rather than any day you fancy.

What it costs

Block paving £5.50 a square metre with re-sanding. Slabs and concrete £4.50. Natural stone £5. Moss and algae treatment £1.50, which on a north-facing drive up here is the single most useful thing on the list. Minimum job £150.

Getting here

20 road miles from Seaford, about 36 minutes via the A22 then A267 north. Travel is my cost to carry, so the square metre rate and the minimum charge are the same here as they are on my own street.

Villages and areas I work in around Heathfield: Cross in Hand, Old Heathfield, Waldron, Punnetts Town, Broad Oak. If you are somewhere not on that list but nearby, ask anyway.

What it costs in Heathfield

Minimum job £150 Small jobs cost the minimum, whatever the rate works out at. It is the first thing I tell people because it is the figure that catches them out.

Published prices
Work	Price
Patio cleaning — slabs, concrete, paving Rotary surface cleaner, then a lance pass on the edges and joints.	from £4.50/m²
Natural stone — Indian sandstone, limestone, York Lower pressure and a wider fan. Sandstone is soft and takes longer.	from £5/m²
Driveway cleaning — concrete, slabs, pattern imprinted	from £4.50/m²
Block paving — clean and kiln-dried re-sand Re-sanding is included, not an extra. A clean without it is half a job.	from £5.50/m²
Decking — clean and rinse Softwood is done at low pressure or soft washed. Pressure furs the grain.	from £5.50/m²
Moss and algae treatment (add-on) Biocide applied after cleaning. Slows regrowth. Not a weedkiller.	from £1.50/m²
Impregnating sealer — natural finish Soaks in, barely changes the look. Second visit, on a dry forecast.	from £5.50/m²
Block paving joint-stabilising sealer Binds the kiln-dried sand in the joints. The right choice for block paving.	from £7.50/m²
Colour-enhancing / wet look sealer Darkens the stone. Worth seeing a test patch before you commit.	£8.50–£12/m²
Gutter clearing — full circuit, downpipes checked Bungalow at the lower end, large detached at the upper. Photos after.	£65–£140
Fascia, soffit and gutter exterior wash	£90–£180
Roof soft washing — moss removal and biocide No pressure on tiles. Scraped, treated, left to weather off.	from £9.50/m²
Render and cladding soft washing	from £6.50/m²

Services

The work

What a clean actually looks like

Sandstone flags along a path, heavily stained with grey and black organic growth, with a brick edging strip and weeds at the kerb — Real job Sandstone flags carrying years of dark organic staining.

The same run of sandstone flags after cleaning, each slab a different shade of buff and rust, with the brick edging clear — Real job Sandstone flags carrying years of dark organic staining.

Herringbone block paved courtyard under a timber pergola, greened over with algae and with weeds and moss growing out of the joints — Block paved courtyard, weeds through the joints

The same courtyard after jet washing and re-sanding, the herringbone pattern sharp again and the brick colour separating from the charcoal blocks — Cleaned and re-sanded

A block paving driveway halfway through cleaning, with a cleaned strip cut across the dirty grey paving showing the red and buff colour underneath — Halfway through. The strip on the left is one pass.

Questions

Asked in Heathfield

The moss on my drive is thick enough to lift in sheets. Is that extra?

No, it is part of the job, and it changes how I do it rather than what it costs. Where moss is more than a few millimetres thick I scrape the bulk off first with a blade or a stiff brush. It sounds crude and it saves an hour of standing there trying to dissolve a lawn with a jet, and it means the surface cleaner is removing dirt from the paving instead of mowing. Thick moss does add time on a large drive and if it will push the job into a second day I will say so in the quote.

Some of the photographs on your site look like they are from around here.

They are. Several of the jobs in the gallery were done around Heathfield and Burwash in the autumn of 2021, before I moved back to Seaford. Every photograph on this site is one of mine from a real job and none have been retouched. I caption them by surface rather than location, because it would be misleading to imply they were Seaford work when they were not.

My drive is north facing and never gets sun. Is there any point cleaning it?

Yes, and there is a strong argument for the biocide treatment on top. A north-facing drive on this ground will regrow faster than a south-facing one, and cleaning alone might buy you a year. The treatment kills the spores left in the surface and typically doubles that. What it will not do is change the fact that your drive is north facing at 150 metres above sea level, and I would rather you had realistic expectations than felt let down in eighteen months.

How far out do you go from Heathfield?

Cross in Hand, Old Heathfield, Waldron, Punnetts Town and Broad Oak. Heathfield itself is 20 miles from Seaford, which is right at the edge of my normal radius, so I try to schedule jobs out this way together. It does not change your price, it just means I may offer you a particular week rather than any day that suits.

Driveway & Patio Cleaning in Heathfield