Paint Removal in Torquay

The Moore & Franks approach in Torquay

Torquay's grand Victorian and Edwardian villas — up around the Warberries, Lincombe and Wellswood — are largely rendered and painted, sometimes over original stone, and Tor Bay salt and sea fret keep them damp. Where masonry paint seals a solid wall, that moisture is trapped and the render blows. Add the painted and pebble-dashed terraces of Ellacombe and Upton, the harbourside and town-centre graffiti, and heritage fabric out at Cockington, and there is plenty here for us. Moore & Franks remove unwanted coatings and clear graffiti with DOFF superheated steam, gentle on period surfaces, test patch first. Family-run, twenty-five years, £5m public liability.

The big Victorian and Edwardian villas around the Warberries, Lincombe and Wellswood are the heart of Torquay paint-removal work. Grand, rendered and painted elevations, some of them coated over original stone, all of them taking Tor Bay salt and the sea fret that hangs in the bay on still days. Where masonry paint has sealed those solid walls, the salt-laden damp is held in and the render blisters and blows. We lift the unwanted coating with low-pressure superheated steam, clearing it without pitting the surface underneath, so the wall can dry and, where there is good stone beneath, the original face can come back.

Down through Ellacombe and Upton the terraces are painted and pebble-dashed, often over-painted more than once, and the job there is usually clearing a tired or inherited coating. Around the harbourside and the town centre we get the regular graffiti and tag calls on shopfronts and walls, which we shift with steam and a graffiti-specific remover at low pressure, so there is no scoured patch left behind. Out at the heritage village of Cockington the fabric is older and softer, and there we keep to the gentlest low-pressure method and never anything abrasive, matching the approach to the age of the wall.

Every Torquay job opens with a test patch on a discreet area. From grand villa render to old Cockington fabric, coatings and substrates vary hugely, so we prove the method lifts the paint cleanly and leaves the surface sound before working a whole elevation. It keeps things straight: most surfaces come back well, but some old coatings have bonded in for good and will not return fully to bare, and we show you that on the test rather than promise the impossible. The site visit, test and written quote are free.

Our Torquay customers are typically within 45 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider TQ1, TQ2 postcode area and the surrounding villages (Babbacombe & Oddicombe Beach, Cockington Village, St Marychurch, Wellswood, Torre Abbey, Kents Cavern).