Exterior cleaning in Freshwater

Federation and Inter-war bungalows on the village grid, 1960s to 1980s apartment blocks around the beach, and large contemporary homes with pools on the Undercliff Road and Lumsdaine Drive headlands. Most of what we clean here dates from 1900s to 1930s core, heavy 2000s rebuilds on the headlands, on sandstone headlands north and south of a short sand beach.

We work around Freshwater Beach and the Duke Kahanamoku statue, Freshwater rock pool, McKillop Park on the headland and Freshwater Village on Lawrence Street, on streets such as Undercliff Road, Kooloora Avenue, Bridge Street, Lumsdaine Drive and Oceanview Road. The defining exterior problem is black streaks on rendered parapets, salt-pitted stainless on the headland homes, and a salt haze that returns to ocean glass within a fortnight.

Homes within roughly 500 metres of the surf. Salt arrives on the nor'easter every afternoon and on southerly storms in winter, so nothing stays clean by itself: glass hazes, render streaks, stainless pits and timber greys. We schedule these homes on the shortest cycles we run anywhere in Sydney.

Field note from Freshwater. The 2000s rendered homes along Undercliff Road have no eaves, so every southerly sheets water down the render; the parapet band goes black first, and that is where we start the biocide. Nathan G, Founder

Planning and site constraints we check in Freshwater:

• Freshwater heritage conservation area around the village
• Coastal hazard mapping on Undercliff Road and the Lumsdaine Drive headland

Run-off. Anything washed off a Freshwater property ends up in Freshwater Beach and the rock pool unless it is stopped at the kerb. Northern Beaches Council enforces the NSW EPA rule that wash water, detergent and sediment stay out of stormwater, so we bund drains, capture run-off and vacuum-recover on sealed or commercial sites. More in our stormwater guide.