The campus at St Cuthbert’s Mayne School in Torquay was in need of maintenance and cleaning in many external areas. While the school was in good condition in general some areas had become contaminated with organic growth. This is completely natural, especially in a coastal area like Torquay, as organic growth feeds of minerals and moisture in the air. The growth led to green, red, and black staining, in some areas, especially a render wall, and on bullnose cladding on around the roof. The growth consisted or a variety of organisms. Single cell green algae was present, as was red algae and black mould. With the help of our designated team we are able to eradicate the growth, and restore the render and the cladding to optimum condition. We also completed maintenance cleaning on many external areas in the school, in order to keep it in excellent condition.

This was a project with its fair share of technical challenges. In order to clean the render wall we needed to secure access to a roof area to work from. Working at height always brings risk, and we put a full health and safety plan in place to ensure none of our workers were exposed to hazardous working conditions. We used the English Heritage recommended Doff Steam system, and an organic external cleaning solution known as Safewash, to clean and treat the wall. We also cleaned cladding, and treated it to remove organic growth. Bullnose cladding is tricky to clean. This is because the curved surface of bullnose cladding means it cannot easily be cleaned from the safety of the ground, and you must use access equipment, such as specialist moving elevating work platforms, to get close enough to clean the cladding quickly.