Signage & Awning Cleaning in Sidmouth

The Moore & Franks approach in Sidmouth

Sidmouth trades on how it looks, and its businesses know it — the seafront hotels along the Esplanade, the independent shops and tea rooms through Fore Street, and the guest houses tucked up the side streets all live or die on first impressions. Salt air off Lyme Bay leaves a film on hotel signage and fascia boards, and the painted and gold-leaf signs so common in this Regency town need a gentle, careful hand rather than anything aggressive. We clean signage and awnings to suit the material, early in the day before the visitors are about, and leave a frontage that fits the town. Local, insured, and respectful of period signage.

Keeping signage clean in Sidmouth is a rolling job, not a one-off. The town trades on how well-kept it looks, and salt drifting up off the sea settles straight back onto a fascia within weeks of a clean. Rather than sell one heavy scrub a year, we would usually rather set a business up with a lighter clean each spring and autumn — it keeps the salt from ever building into a film, and a smart frontage is doing quiet work every day the visitors are about.

The older frontages carry a lot of traditional signwork — painted timber boards, swinging bracket signs and glazed hanging signs on the shops around the Market Place and Old Fore Street. These want a soft brush and a mild cleaning agent, never a pressure lance, or you lift the paint along with the grime. We clean the lettering and the board face gently, then a low-pressure warm rinse takes off the salt haze and leaves the colour looking like it should.

Not all the trade is on the front. The guest houses and B&Bs on the side streets, the shops up at Sidford, and the businesses around Sidbury and Woolbrook all carry signage that greens over under the tree cover coming off Peak Hill and Salcombe Hill rather than from salt. Shade and valley damp are the culprits inland, so we adjust the clean to suit — more algae, less salt — and reach the high signs from the pavement.

Our Sidmouth customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX10 postcode area and the surrounding villages (The Esplanade, Sidford, Sidbury, Woolbrook, Peak Hill, Salcombe Hill, Connaught Gardens).