Sand Jet Cleaning

Our company was originally formed as a Farrow System Franchise, in fact we were the very first franchisee - starting in November 2000. A year later, as the franchise organisation collapsed in December 2001 - due to the number of 'economies with the truth' made by Nigel Farrow. We were the fourth franchisee to dissassociate with Farrow System Ltd and we did so in January 2002. We still operate the same machines as in the Franchise (we did offer to sell them back to him!) - it is just that we know the origins of the machines, and why 'Farrow System' is an inappropriate name! The ex-franchisees formed a new company 'Ashrose Group' to offer the services.

Should you wish to see the machines in action, then YouTube is full of video demonstrations of the machines, but I would advise watching with the sound turned down. The abilities of the machines is self evident from the videos - the commentaries have a tendency to get a little too much 'hocus pocus' added!

So we specialise in using an specific 'adjustable pressure, low consumption sand jetting system' that has been used nationwide for property restoration, including gaining approval for and subsequently working on many Listed Buildings.
The links on the left should lead you to a page with further details.

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Key Benefits

• Flexible, many surfaces can be dealt with quickly and easily.
• The amount of abrasive and the blast pressure can be tuned - much more effectively than with a dry sand blaster this allows us to clean quite soft surfaces where the aggression of a standard dry blast system would cause excessive damage
• The blast appears as a 'damp gritty mist' (see picture below)- the dampness means that surface contaminants such as lead paints are captured, and can be contained - this, combined with the low consumption, means that expensive waste disposal costs can be minimised; at the same time we don't flood an area with water (unlike tradional slurry blasters) - so don't have contaminated water run off issues either.
• Scaleable - as part of the Ashrose Group we can bring in additional contractors should there be enough work - and so long as there is space for multiple machines.

Bridge Parapets being cleaned of lead contaminated paint near Derby 2005. The back board was to prevent debris landing on pedestrians below.

However, in some instances traditional dry sand blasting do have advantages - the debris created is dry and can be swept or vacuumed up easily, and iron surfaces don't suffer flash rusting as rapidly; so we also offer traditional dry blasting as a service.
Sometimes chemical stripping is the answer - particularly from delicate surfaces that might scratch such as glass.
For all round cleanliness, few techniques come close to dry ice blasting - where the only residue left after cleaning is the removed contamination.
In a similar way, pressure washing is also a service that we offer, many surfaces can be cleaned effectively with water - and perhaps a little soap.