Fences and retaining walls
Colorbond, palings, render and block — cleaned at a pressure that does not leave timber furry.
Phones on Mon–Sat. After that, send a text and we call back before 9am.
- How long
- Typically 1–3 hours, depending on length.
- Where
- Broadbeach based, Gold Coast wide
- Also
- Retaining walls, Timber and Colorbond, Block and render walls.
- Price
- Free, no-obligation on-site quote. We do not publish figures.
- Fibro
- We do not pressure-clean asbestos cement. If we find it, we stop and tell you in writing.
- Arrival
- Arrival window confirmed the evening before.
How it gets done
The same order, every job. If we depart from it, you hear on the day.
- Walk the fence line and walls with you — timber, coating, any asbestos cement, what is planted against it.
- Move pots, clear the agreed cut-back, and soak every bed and lawn edge on the run-off line.
- Apply the soft-wash solution and let it dwell, so the mould is killed rather than knocked off.
- Rinse at the lowest pressure the material takes — genuinely low on timber, controlled on block.
- Detail posts, rails, capping, gate hardware and the bottom edge where growth is worst.
- Treat efflorescence on block and rendered walls, and be upfront that it can return.
- Check the weep holes and ag-drain outlets, and clear what is blocking them.
- Rinse the plants, lawn and paths again, sweep up, and walk it with you before we go.
What comes with every job
Not a premium package. It is what a job is, at no extra charge.
- A walk around first
- We go over the property with you before a hose comes off the ute. You hear the bad news at the start.
- Before photos, every job
- Shot before we touch anything, including whatever was already cracked, lifting or perished. That record is as much for you as for us.
- Plants, drains, furniture
- Garden beds wet down and rinsed. Drains and pits covered. Furniture, mats and the barbecue moved out of the way and put back.
- Biodegradable products
- Diluted, left to work, then rinsed. Drains and pits in the wash zone stay covered, and run-off keeps off the inlet where the fall allows.
- The full photo set
- Before, after, and a separate set of anything already damaged. Out with the invoice, sooner if you ask.
- A person you can text
- The number reaches the person who will be standing on your driveway. No call centre, no subcontractor.
None of it is an add-on. No tier unlocks it. Hold any exterior cleaning quote against the list, ours included.
Fences and retaining walls sit in the shadiest, dampest part of most Gold Coast blocks — a paling fence on the southern boundary behind a hedge may not see direct sun from one year to the next — so they carry the heaviest growth on the property and they are the softest thing on it.
An hour with a hired machine turns a tired grey fence into a furry, raised-grain one that looks worse in twelve months than it did before, and there is no undoing it.
Why palings go furry
Timber is not uniform. Each growth ring is a band of soft early-wood next to a band of hard late-wood, and a high-pressure jet erodes the soft bands first, leaving the hard grain standing proud. That is the furry, raised-grain finish on any hard-washed fence — torn wood fibre, not dirt, and lifted fibres cannot be put back. Sanding is the only remedy and nobody sands a fence. Worse, the roughened surface holds more moisture and grows mould faster, so it greys off sooner than it would have. Old hardwood palings and treated pine both do it; weathered timber does it fastest. So a timber fence gets soft washed: a dilute sodium hypochlorite blend on the boards, time to kill the mould and lift the grey weathered film, then a low-pressure rinse. The colour comes back because the growth is dead, not because we cut a layer of wood off. Same logic for timber decks and privacy screens — and we clean only, so if you are planning to re-oil a deck, a proper wash is step one and someone else does step two.
Colorbond fencing
Colorbond is a baked paint finish over zinc or aluminium coated steel, and it wants a wash, not a scour. The sun side is usually chalking after ten or fifteen years, so abrasive pads or a stiff brush take colour off onto the cloth and leave a patch shinier or duller than the rest of the panel. The shaded side — often the side facing your neighbour, which never sees sun — carries the mould. Strong acidic cleaners and high pressure both damage the coating and neither is necessary: soft-wash mix, dwell time, low-pressure rinse. The other thing worth knowing is that Colorbond rusts from the bottom up, wherever soil, mulch or a garden bed has been heaped against the sheets and holds them permanently damp. We show you where that is happening, because pulling the mulch back two hundred millimetres adds years to the fence.
Render, block and rock walls
Retaining walls hold back damp soil, so they grow more than anything else on a block and carry a problem cleaning cannot solve: efflorescence. That white, powdery bloom on block and rendered walls is salt carried out of the wall by water moving through it from the soil behind. We can remove the bloom and it looks excellent — but it comes back, because it is the wall drying out, not dirt sitting on it. Anyone promising a clean fixes efflorescence permanently is selling. Rendered walls otherwise behave like house render: solution and dwell, never a jet that cuts the topcoat or drives water into hairline cracks. Sandstone and rock walls are soft and their mortar is softer, so they get low pressure and patience. On every retaining wall we check the weep holes and ag-drain outlets are clear rather than choked with mulch and mud, because a blocked weep hole turns a damp wall into a failing one.
Plants, pets and the neighbours
Fences are the hardest surface to protect, because the run-off has nowhere to go except into whatever is planted right against them — usually a murraya or viburnum hedge, a row of agapanthus, or the veggie patch. So the beds along the fence line get soaked with clean water before we start, kept wet while we work, and rinsed again after: dilution is what keeps a hedge alive when a hypochlorite solution runs off a panel. Anything in a pot moves. The wash mix is the same active as pool chlorine at working dilution and it breaks down quickly, but concentrated run-off will burn a lawn. Dogs and cats stay inside until it is rinsed and dry, and bowls come in. Then there is the neighbour: half your fence is their view, and cleaning one side of a Colorbond panel and not the other looks odd, so if it needs doing from both sides we will ask you to square it with them first. We will not walk into a yard with a dog we have not met.
Pre-1990 fences and asbestos cement
Asbestos cement fencing is still all over the older Gold Coast suburbs — flat or corrugated sheets between steel or timber posts, usually painted at some point, very often crumbling and mossy along the bottom edge where it meets the dirt. It is also on plenty of pre-1990 sheds and lean-tos backing onto a fence line. Using high-pressure water on asbestos cement is prohibited under Queensland's asbestos code of practice, because it puts fibres into the air and into the run-off heading for your garden and the stormwater drain. This is not a judgement call we make on the day: we identify it at the quote, we do not clean it, we work around it, and you get it in writing. Dealing with it is a licensed asbestos removalist's job.
What a fence clean does
It removes mould, algae, lichen, the grey weathered film, dirt splash and cobwebs, and on Colorbond it usually brings the colour back close to what it should be. It does not replace split or missing palings, straighten a lean, fix a rail rotted through at the post, or reverse rust that has eaten through the bottom of a sheet. A clean fence still looks its age — it just looks its age well. If the fence is closer to replacement than cleaning, we say so at the quote rather than take money for tidying up something you are about to pull down.
Questions we get asked
My fence was cleaned once before and it is rough now. Can you fix it?
Not the roughness, no. That texture is torn wood fibre from too much pressure, and the only real remedy is sanding, which nobody does to a fence. What we can do is clean it properly at low pressure so the mould and grey are gone — considerably better, though the raised grain is still there. You hear that before we start, not after.
Do you need to go into my neighbour's yard?
Only if the fence needs doing from both sides, and only with their agreement — we will not just open a gate. It is worth asking, because a Colorbond fence cleaned on one side looks half done from theirs, and plenty of neighbours are happy to have it done while someone is already there. We also need to know about their dog before we know about their fence.
Will cleaning make my old fence look new?
Dramatically better, but not new. Cleaning removes what is growing on and in the surface — genuinely most of what makes an old fence look bad — but it does not replace split palings, fix a lean, or bring back rusted-out steel. A well-cleaned twenty-year-old fence looks like a well-kept twenty-year-old fence.
The white powder on my block wall keeps coming back. Why?
That is efflorescence: salts carried out of the blockwork by water moving through the wall from the damp soil behind. We can remove the bloom and the wall looks great, but while water keeps moving through it keeps depositing salt on the face. Better drainage and clear weep holes slow it down. Anyone promising to clean it away permanently is not being straight with you.
Can you get to the retaining wall behind the garden bed?
Usually, with a bit of planning. We need somewhere to stand and somewhere for the run-off to go, which sometimes means cutting a hedge back beforehand or agreeing a couple of plants get moved. We work out what is realistic at the quote and tell you what we cannot reach, rather than leaving you to find the missed strip afterwards.
There is no price on the site — why?
Because fence work is measured in condition, not metres. Forty metres of five-year-old Colorbond and forty metres of weathered hardwood palings with a hedge against them are not the same job, and a published figure would be wrong for one of them. We come out, look, and give you a fixed price on the spot for the scope we agree standing there — if the job on the day turns out to be a different one, we stop and talk to you first. That visit is free and there is no obligation.
Not sure it needs doing?
Ring and describe it. We will tell you straight.
Ask for a quote
We look at the job and price it on the spot. It costs nothing.
After hours the form still reaches us. We call back before 9am.
Suburbs we cover
Fences and retaining walls across the Gold Coast. These are the ones written up so far.
Related services
Two or three surfaces on one visit costs less than separate trips.
Driveway cleaning
Concrete, exposed aggregate and pavers back to an even colour, without the stripes.
House washing
Soft washing for render, Colorbond, weatherboard and brick — mould off, paint on.
Pool surrounds and patios
Travertine, pavers and tiled alfresco — the black line at the coping and the sunscreen film, gone.