Power washing in Lucan

Lucan's driveways

Drive through Esker, Hillcrest, Finnstown or Ballyowen and the pattern is the same: semi-ds and terraces with block-paved drives out the front. Cobble-lock went down all over Lucan as the estates grew, and a lot of it has now been through ten, twenty or thirty Irish winters.

Over that time, three things happen to a block-paved drive:

1. Algae turns the surface green and slippery, especially on drives that face north.
2. Moss and weeds move into the joints, pushing out the sand that keeps the blocks tight.
3. Tyre marks, oil and grime darken the parts where the cars sit.

A hot-water pressure wash deals with all three. It lifts the green from the face of the blocks, clears the joints, and takes off most of the traffic grime. Older oil stains usually fade a lot rather than disappearing completely, and we'll say so from your photos. Our driveway cleaning page goes through it surface by surface.

One thing surprises people: once the moss is out, the joints are emptier than they were. That sand was mostly holding growth anyway. Topping the joints back up with dry jointing sand keeps the blocks tight and makes it harder for weeds to settle, and it's something you can do yourself a few days after the clean, once the drive has dried out.

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Adamstown and the newer developments

Adamstown is a different kind of place from the older estates: townhouses, duplexes and apartments built from the mid-2000s on, with courtyards, shared paths and parking areas looked after by management companies. Most of the houses have small front areas and compact back gardens, often paved with concrete slabs or porcelain.

For homeowners there, a typical job is the front step, path and parking space plus the patio out the back. For management companies, we price the shared areas: paths, steps, courtyards, bin stores and parking bays, done in sections so residents can still get in and out.

Parking in the newer parts of Lucan is often in allocated bays or along narrow shared streets. Tell us where the van can stop when you send photos, so we can plan how far the hoses need to run and avoid blocking anyone in.

The village and the older houses

Lucan village is older than most of what surrounds it, sitting where the Griffeen meets the Liffey, with period houses, cottages and stone walls along the main street and the roads leading off it. Between the Liffey Valley and the Griffeen Valley Park, Lucan also has a lot of mature trees, and trees mean shade, leaves and moss.

Older houses often have features that need a gentler touch than a modern drive:

• Stone walls and steps, where soft lime mortar can wash out under too much pressure (stone cleaning)
• Painted or rendered fronts, which get a low-pressure soft wash rather than a blast
• Gutters under big trees, which fill quickly every autumn (gutter cleaning)

If moss has spread onto the roof of an older house or a bungalow, our roof cleaning page explains what we do and what it can't fix.

Patios and side passages

Behind the house, most Lucan gardens have a patio of some kind, from plain concrete slabs to sandstone or porcelain. The side passage between the house and the boundary wall is often the dampest spot of all, since it barely gets any sun and the algae builds up there first.

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Hot water handles most patios without any chemicals. Sandstone needs a little care, because it's softer than it looks, and some marks, such as black lichen spots, are rooted into the stone and fade only slowly. See patio cleaning for what to expect on each type.

Combining jobs in Lucan

Power washing is our third trade, alongside clearance and carpet cleaning, so it's easy to put jobs together. If you're selling a family home in Lucan, we can clear the house, wash the outside and clean the carpets, all quoted together. For more on getting a property ready for the market, see our guide to preparing a property for sale.

For anywhere else in the county, see power washing in Dublin, or browse every surface we clean on the power washing page.