What a car park clean actually buys you
Two things, and it is worth being clear about which one you are paying for.
The first is appearance. A car park is the first surface a visitor stands on, and a green-black film across the shaded runs tells them something about the building before they have met anybody in it. Hotels and offices tend to buy on this. It is a legitimate reason and I am not going to talk you out of it.
The second is the slip risk, and that is the one that costs money if it is ignored. Algae on tarmac in a shaded corner under trees, wet, in October, is genuinely slippery. It is also the sort of thing that shows up in an accident report afterwards with a photograph attached. Cleaning it is cheap next to the alternative.
How I work a car park
The site gets walked before anything is priced. I am looking at four things: how much of the surface is actually dirty rather than just weathered, where the drainage runs, what the bay markings are made of, and how much of the car park can realistically be closed at once.
Then it is worked in sections. Cones and tape around a run of bays, wash, move the cones on. On a mid-sized office car park that means the site stays open all day and the disruption is a strip at a time. On a hotel it usually means starting at six so the overnight guests’ cars are the only ones there.
The machine is the same one I use on driveways, a 1500 psi industrial jet washer, run through a rotary surface cleaner for open tarmac. The surface cleaner is what makes a car park viable at all: it covers a wide band evenly and does not leave the tiger stripes you get from waving a lance about.
The parts that need thinking about
Barrier kerbs and islands. The planted islands and kerb lines hold most of the moss on a typical car park, and they take longer per square metre than the open bays by a wide margin. Worth pricing separately so you can decide.
Bin stores and service yards. Almost always the worst area on the site and almost always the one nobody mentions at survey. Say if you want it included.
Ramps and multi-storey decks. I can do surface decks and ramps. What I cannot do is enclosed lower decks with no through ventilation, because the machine is petrol driven.
What it costs
Open hard standing over 200m² is priced per square metre and works out cheaper than a domestic driveway, because the machine runs continuously once it is set up and there is far less edging per square metre covered. Most car parks come out as a day rate.
The guide figures on this page are exactly that. Nothing gets confirmed until I have walked the site, because access and the out of hours question move the price more than the area does.
Questions
Car parks: what buyers ask
Do you have to close the whole car park?
No, and I would rather not. I work it in phases, normally a run of six to ten bays at a time, cone off that section, finish it and move on. You lose a strip for an hour or so instead of the site for a day. Where a car park genuinely has to be empty, an early start before opening usually gets it done before anyone arrives.
Will jet washing lift the bay markings?
Thermoplastic markings, the thick ones that stand slightly proud, survive normal washing fine. Painted markings are a different matter, particularly if they are old and already flaking. I drop the pressure and change the angle across markings rather than run over them at full whack. If the paint is far enough gone that it will lift whatever I do, I will tell you at survey rather than after.
What about the oil patches under every bay?
Old engine oil that has soaked into porous tarmac or concrete does not fully come out. Water pressure alone lifts the surface film and leaves the stain. A degreaser and a longer dwell gets most of the rest. I will show you what a test patch looks like before you commit, so you are buying a known result rather than a hope.
Where does the water go?
Into your existing surface water drainage, which is what it is there for on a clean water wash. Where a degreaser is used on a large area I will talk to you first about whether the site drains to foul or to surface water, because that changes what I am allowed to put down. On a site with an interceptor it is straightforward.
Arrange a survey
Tell me about the car parks
Rough area, surface type and the quietest window on your site is enough to start with. I will walk it before quoting, and put a fixed price in writing afterwards.
Sent
That is with me.
I read every one myself. If you sent photos I can usually come back with a fixed price the same day, or the next morning if it arrives late.