Exterior cleaning in Palm Beach

Ocean-side and Pittwater-side estates and weekenders, many architecturally significant, with timber, concrete, render, sandstone and glass, from Florida Road's modernist houses to the Pittwater waterfronts with jetties and boat sheds. Most of what we clean here dates from 1920s weekenders, 1950s to 1970s modernist houses, contemporary estates, on sandstone peninsula ending at Barrenjoey, ocean on one side and Pittwater on the other.

We work around Barrenjoey Lighthouse and headland, Palm Beach rock pool and the Pacific Club, Snapperman Beach and the Pittwater side and Florida Road and Sunrise Hill, on streets such as Ocean Road, Barrenjoey Road, Florida Road, Sunrise Road and Pacific Road. The defining exterior problem is salt on every ocean elevation, humidity and tannin on the Pittwater side, timber that needs the gentlest treatment, and homes left empty between visits so growth gets ahead.

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 Palm Beach. A lot of Palm Beach homes are weekenders, so nobody notices the south wall going black until Christmas; we run scheduled visits for absent owners and send the photos the same day, which is how most of our Palm Beach work is organised. Nathan G, Founder

Planning and site constraints we check in Palm Beach:

• Coastal hazard mapping on Ocean Road and the beachfront
• Bushfire-prone land on Sunrise Hill and the Barrenjoey slopes
• Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park at Barrenjoey
• Heritage-listed houses and the Palm Beach heritage conservation items

Run-off. Anything washed off a Palm Beach property ends up in Palm Beach and Pittwater 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.