Commercial.

Painted Brick Cleaning

We can clean painted bricks, or remove dirt from them; we have various techniques for this depending on the dirt or paint, and the quality or softness of the brick – from the Sand Jet, to a full on Sand Blast, or even more aggressive high pressure water systems. The photos below show samples of our work throughout the UK, and by using the menu selector on the top left of the picture box you can choose to see just painted brick samples, or just dirty brick samples In the photos below you can choose between dirty brick and painted brick .

Dirty and Painted Stone Cleaning

Greenleaf Contractors offer a stone cleaning service across the UK. We clean stone with a variety of methods or options, from superheated steam (DOFF type techniques) moving up (in aggressiveness) to our sand jet machine, through sandblasting or grit blasting, and up to high pressure water should you desire it. We can simply clean dirty stone, or strip paint from it. Post treatment we can seal the surface to prevent discolouration in the future. We typically work in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, but regularly travel to London, Derby, Newcastle and Scotland.

Wood Sand Jet Cleaning

We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system that has been used nationwide for property restoration, including gaining approval for and subsequently working on many Listed Buildings.

The system, in our trained hands, causes minimal damage to an underlying surface and is flexible enough to tackle most property restoration cleaning tasks.

The low pressure sand jet can clean bricks without injecting large quantities of water into the surface, and with minimal surface damage. At the same time, the ‘wet’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting.
However, the damp nature of the blast does mean that the abrasive and removed dirt / paint stick to surfaces – this can be washed out, or left to dry and brushed out. But we have now re-discovered that dry blasting can, if the operator is careful, be quite effective; so we now offer that service as well. It is one of those ‘swings and roundabouts’ things – the dry blast will use more abrasive and create lots and lots of dust, but is perhaps a little easier to clean up on the day.

Steel, Cast Iron, Aluminium & Alloy Cleaning

We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system but obviously sometimes traditional sand/bead blasting is more appropriate for metal cleaning.

However The ‘damp’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting. It also acts as a coolant, and therefore can clean thin metals, such as steel motor vehicle shells, without heating the surface causing distortion. In particular though this capturing of dirt means that the system can safely clean lead based paints from structural steelwork ad Cast Iron . It is also ‘soft’ enough to clean Aluminium or Alloy surfaces without heavy scratching – but enough profile to allow paint coats to fully bind to the cleaned surface.

A further advantage of the system we use is that it also uses far less abrasive than traditional sandblasting, making expensive abrasives, such as garnet, cost effective, and more significantly reducing waste. Abrasive does not need to be recycled, preventing cross contamination between jobs, and apart from in specialist cases, is not a major part of the running costs.

Graffiti Removal from Brick, Metal or Concrete

Bricks can be sealed using Silane or even more slippery products to make it very difficult to reapply graffiti to a surface – paint doesn’t stick, and what does can be wiped or pressure washed clean. Subsequent sealing of surfaces can minimise re-occurrence of graffiti, but care must be taken to avoid providing a primed ‘background colour’ for new graffiti.

Sometimes, however, chemical stripping solutions offer a rapid and effective method for graffiti removal – they are particularly useful for removing graffiti from over painted surfaces or from surfaces such as galvanising that may be damaged by abrasives.