Soft Wash in Sidmouth

The Moore & Franks approach in Sidmouth

Sidmouth's grand Regency villas and white-rendered seafront terraces are the town's pride, and they sit right in the firing line of salt-laden wind off the bay. That coastal exposure breeds algae and red lichen on painted render, and the older, softer finishes on these listed and period homes won't survive a high-pressure clean. Soft washing is built for exactly this: minimal pressure, a treatment matched to the surface, and a result that keeps that crisp Sidmouth white looking right. We travel down the coast regularly, work carefully around period detail, and carry full insurance. Plain quotes, careful hands, no damage to delicate frontages.

Up around Woolbrook and Sidford, Sidmouth's 1930s semis sit under the heavy tree canopy that spills down off Peak Hill and Salcombe Hill. Their clay and concrete-tile roofs and rendered gables stay shaded and slow to dry, so moss and green algae dig in on the north sides. We treat these walls and roofs at low pressure with a biocide that kills the growth at its roots, leaving the render clean and even without the damage a jet wash would do to an ageing tile.

The newer estates out toward the Bowd and Sidbury are modern silicone and K-Rend, and the humid Sid valley greens them up on the weather side within a handful of years. Owners often assume a coated render should stay clean, but the marine damp that funnels up the valley says otherwise. A low-pressure treatment clears the discolouration back to the original finish, and a periodic top-up keeps the exposed elevations from streaking again.

Anyone living near the front knows the other Sidmouth problem: salt. A fine coating settles on glass, frames and rendered walls the length of the Esplanade and around Connaught Gardens, holding grime and feeding lichen year-round. Where render is involved, our low-pressure biocide lifts that established growth without stripping paint, and because it works at root level rather than on the surface, a treated wall stays looking right far longer through the salty coastal winters.

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).