Driveway & Patio Cleaning Nottingham | Block Paving

Exterior hard surfaces: block paving drives, patio slabs, concrete, paths and steps. The work is a wash followed by a rebuild. Pressure lifts the algae, the black film and the ground-in soil, and on block paving it also lifts the kiln-dried sand out of every joint, which is the thing holding the blocks against each other. Putting that sand back is half the job and it is the half that gets left off a cheap quote. This sits alongside our window round rather than inside it: an exterior glass visit covers glass, frames and sills, never paving.

Plenty of patios do not need a contractor at all. A small slab patio, a hose point, a spare Saturday and a hired washer will get you a decent result for very little money, and we would rather say so than sell you a visit. Where it stops being sensible is block paving, anything much over thirty square metres, natural stone, and any surface where a mistake is permanent. Sandstone, limestone and porcelain all mark under too much pressure or the wrong chemical, and a lifted joint costs far more to put right than the clean saved.

What is included

Before the water goes on

The surface identified: block paving, pressed concrete slab, natural stone, porcelain, imprinted concrete or tarmac, because pressure and chemistry both follow from that
Imprinted concrete flagged as a sealer job rather than a jetting job, because what has failed there is the sealer coat, not the concrete under it
Established weeds, roots and thick moss pulled and scraped out of the joints by hand first
Gullies, air bricks and door thresholds covered, and the route the water will take worked out before it starts taking it
Cars, bins and furniture moved off, planting and painted timber sheeted
A test patch in a low visibility corner on any stone we have not worked on before
Sunken blocks, rocking slabs and failed edge kerbs pointed out before we start rather than blamed on the wash afterwards

The clean

Rotary surface cleaner across the open area, which is what keeps every pass even
Lance work confined to edges, kerb lines, steps and the corners a rotary physically cannot reach
Pressure and nozzle set to the surface, well down on sandstone, limestone and porcelain from what concrete takes
Black spot lichen treated with a proprietary remover and dwell time, because pressure alone does not lift it and pressure hard enough to try will damage the slab
Oil, tyre scuff and leaf tannin staining worked separately, since they are chemistry problems rather than soil
Slurry swept and vacuumed up rather than flushed into the nearest gully or run onto next door's garden
The run-off checked before we leave, not after somebody complains

Putting it back

Kiln-dried sand brushed into block paving joints once the surface has dried
Sand worked down and topped up in stages rather than scattered once and swept off
Jointing compound instead of loose sand where joints are wide, on a slope, or where you want the weeds held down longer
Sealing quoted as a separate return visit on a properly dry surface, never the same day
Drainage channels and gully gratings cleared of what came off the paving
Everything we moved put back where it was

What is not included

Applying professional-use weedkillers and moss killers. Those are plant protection products, and the regulations allow only someone holding a certificate of competence to apply them
Relaying sunken, rocking or spreading blocks, rebuilding failed edge kerbs, or anything below the surface
Repointing mortar-jointed slabs, including pointing that the wash has exposed as already failed
Roof and render softwashing, which needs equipment and cover we do not hold
Tarmac restoration and recolouring, and recolouring or resealing imprinted concrete
Drains, gullies and soakaways beyond clearing what came off your paving
Sealing on the same day as the clean, whatever the weather is doing

The first one is worth checking on any quote, not just ours. A hard surface weedkiller or moss killer is a plant protection product, and a professional-use one may legally only be applied by someone holding a certificate of competence. Algae and lichen treatments fall under a different regime, where COSHH still applies. Ask which product and ask to see the paperwork. The rest of the list is groundwork rather than cleaning.

How long it takes

Property	Our team	On your own
Small patio, up to 20 m²	2 to 3 hours	6 to 8 hours with a domestic lance
Single block paved drive, 30 to 40 m², including re-sanding	4 to 6 hours	Two days, and the sand usually gets skipped
Double drive, 50 to 70 m²	A full day, occasionally two	Three days or more, spread over weekends
Re-sanding on its own, once the paving is dry	1 to 2 hours per 40 m²	3 to 4 hours per 40 m² with a broom
Sealing, as a return visit	2 to 4 hours, then keep off it for a day	4 to 6 hours, and the timing is what goes wrong

A domestic washer and a lance will clean a patio. It just takes several times longer, and it is where the striping comes from. Block paving cannot be re-sanded wet either, so outside a dry spell the sand goes in on a second visit, and sealing needs two or three dry days before it.

What driveway & patio cleaning costs in Nottingham

Cleaning priced by the square metre at typical UK rates, with a minimum charge on small jobs. Re-sanding and sealing are quoted separately. Our own cost research puts the Midlands at around the UK average to 10% below it, so Nottingham sits in the lower half of every range on this page.

Your property

£100 to £200

Typical cost in Nottingham. A written fixed price for your property takes about a minute: ask for one.

Property	Typical cost
Cleaning, per square metre	£3 to £6
Minimum charge on a small job	Usually billed as a 30 m² minimum
Patio, up to 20 m²	£90 to £160
Single drive, 30 to 40 m²	£100 to £200
Double drive, 50 to 70 m²	£150 to £280
Large drive, 90 m² and over	£225 to £350

The minimum charge is what catches people out. A 15 m² patio is usually billed as 30 m², so at £3 to £6 per square metre it costs the same £90 to £180 as a patio twice the size. Cleaning a patio and a path in the same visit spreads that minimum across more ground.

Priced separately

Extra	Typical cost
Block paving re-sanding, per m²	£1.50 to £3
Sealing, on a separate dry visit, per m²	£4 to £10
Clean and seal together, single drive	£200 to £300
Heavy moss, weed or oil pre-treatment, per m²	£2 to £5

These are typical Nottingham market ranges, not our price list. We quote a fixed price in writing for your property before anything starts, because a number produced from a bedroom count alone has priced an average property rather than yours. The figures above come from our own UK cost research, set out in full in this guide.

How a driveway or patio job runs

Identify the surface, then choose the pressure

Concrete and block paving take real pressure. Indian sandstone, limestone, porcelain, imprinted concrete and tarmac do not. Getting that wrong is the difference between a clean surface and a permanently scored one, so it is settled before the machine comes off the van rather than discovered halfway across the drive.

Growth comes out by hand first

Established weeds, roots and thick moss are pulled and scraped out of the joints before any water goes on. Blasting them shreds the tops, drives the debris across everything else and leaves the root in place, and it takes longer than doing it properly in the first place.

Rotary surface cleaner across the open area

A flat surface cleaner spins its jets under a housing at a fixed height, so every part of the surface gets the same distance and the same dwell. That is what produces an even finish. The same water through a lance gives you stripes and arcs, because no arm holds a constant speed and angle across forty square metres.

The lance is for edges only

Kerb lines, steps, corners and the strip against the house, held at a shallow angle and kept moving. Freehand lance work across an open drive is the single most common reason a cleaned surface looks worse than it did before, and it is also what blows the jointing sand out unevenly.

The slurry is collected, not flushed away

What comes off a drive is silt, dead algae, moss and whatever the cars have dropped. It is swept and vacuumed and taken away, rather than pushed into the nearest gully, which then blocks, or run onto a neighbour's land, which is not our water to send there. Surface water drains usually go to a watercourse, not to treatment.

Sand back in, sealing separately

Kiln-dried sand brushed into block paving joints once the surface has dried, worked down in stages and topped up until the joints stop taking it. Sealing, if it is wanted at all, is a different visit on a surface that is dry through.

When to book it

Spring, for two reasons. The growth you are paying to remove has had all winter to establish and is at its worst in March and April, and a surface cleaned then stays clean through the months you use it. Spring also gives you the drying weather a block paving job needs twice, once for the sand and again if you are sealing. Book it in October and the algae is back by February. If the drive is being cleaned to sell the house, book it around the photographs.

Whoever turns up is directly employed by us, DBS-checked and reference-verified, which is not the same arrangement as most companies quoting against this. More on how we work on the about page, and the common pre-booking questions are on the FAQ page.

Where we do this

Driveway & Patio Cleaning runs across all 69 areas we cover, at the same price with no travel supplement. Each link goes to what this job involves in that particular place.

If you want everything we do in one place rather than this service on its own, the area pages cover that: Arnold, Aspley, Attenborough, Bakersfield and every other area. The services hub compares this service against the other 13.

What goes wrong, and how to avoid it

The mistakes below account for most of the disappointment in this kind of work, ours included. Several of them will save you money whether you hire us or not.

Using a lance freehand across an open surface

A lance puts the entire flow through one small spot, and nobody holds a constant speed, height and angle for long enough to keep that even. You get stripes, an arc pattern where the wrist pivoted, and jointing sand blown out in some places and not others. The rotary surface cleaner exists precisely because the human arm is the weak part.

Jetting block paving and not putting the sand back

The step cheap jobs skip, and the one that costs you afterwards. Joint sand is what transfers load between blocks. Washed out and left out, blocks rock under a car, edge courses creep, and weed seed drops into open joints instead of tight ones. A year on, the drive is in worse condition than if it had never been cleaned.

Sealing a surface that is damp or still dirty

A sealer traps whatever is under it. Over residual moisture it goes milky or white and has to be stripped off, which is a worse job than the cleaning was. Over remaining staining it makes the stain permanent. The surface has to be genuinely clean and dry through, which after a wash is two or three dry days.

Acid or full pressure on the wrong surface

Limestone and many Indian sandstones are attacked by acid-based cleaners, which etch the face and can leave it patchily lighter than it started. High pressure held close scores soft stone and blows out the pointing between slabs. Tarmac is worse again: hit it hard and you strip the bitumen binder and expose loose aggregate, and that cannot be put back.

What Customers Say

Rated 5.0 out of 5on Google

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Questions

Driveway & Patio CleaningQuestions

Anything not covered here, ring us on 07438 843980.

Should I just hire a pressure washer and do it myself?

For a small slab patio, often yes. Hire is cheap, the risk is low and the finish is perfectly good. Block paving is where it turns. A domestic machine and a lance strip the sand out of every joint and leave stripes across the surface, and the blocks start to move under traffic once the joints are empty. If you do go ahead, buy kiln-dried sand at the same time and set aside an afternoon for putting it back.

Why does the sand have to go back in?

Because it is structural rather than decorative. Block paving is an interlocking system and the sand in the joints is what transfers load from one block to the next. Wash it out and leave it out and the blocks rock, the edges creep outwards, the pattern opens up and weed seed drops straight into the gaps. A drive that was jetted and never re-sanded usually looks worse a year later than one nobody touched.

Will you kill the weeds and moss, or just take them off?

Washing removes the growth. It does not kill what is left in the joint, so it comes back, and nobody should promise otherwise from a pressure washer alone. Killing it is a chemical job with a legal edge to it: a professional-use weedkiller or moss killer is a plant protection product, and only someone holding a certificate of competence may apply one. Ask any contractor which product and to see the certificate. Otherwise a properly filled joint is the practical control.

Is sealing worth it?

Sometimes, and the timing matters more than the product does. A sealer locks in whatever is underneath it, so sealing a damp or still dirty surface makes the staining permanent and can turn the slab milky white, which then has to be stripped. On a clean surface that is dry all the way through it slows staining, holds the jointing sand down and makes the next clean quicker. It is not permanent and wants redoing every few years.

My patio is Indian sandstone. Can it be pressure washed?

Yes, at reduced pressure and with the right chemistry, but it is the surface where jobs go wrong. Sandstone and limestone are porous and soft enough to be scored by a lance held too close, and acid-based cleaners etch limestone and can pull the colour out of sandstone permanently. Porcelain is hard, but the mortar joints between the slabs are not. Say what you have when you ask for a price.