Roof Cleaning in Alfama

About our service in Alfama

The safety point here is not a formality. These coverings are laid on centuries-old structures, single-lap tiles bedded on thin battens with nothing underneath them, and they do not carry weight; a foot in the wrong place goes through, and the drop inside is as dangerous as the drop outside. Add roofs that step down towards Santa Apolónia at odd angles, no gutter to hold on to and a lane six feet wide below, and you have the setting for the fall this trade is notorious for. We go up with the protection and access the situation demands, and nobody who lives in the building goes with us. Getting there is a job in itself: no lift, stairs that turn on themselves, and a route agreed in advance with neighbours, since the only way onto your roof is often through the next building. Ownership is the second trap. Nearly every building in Alfama is divided into flats, so the covering is a common part and cleaning it is a matter for the condomínio, not for the person on the top floor watching a stain spread. Where an owner or a short-let operator calls us alone, we can visit, look and report, and that report is usually what gets the subject onto the agenda. Then there is the fibre cement. Behind the historic frontages sit patched rear extensions, sheds and light-well covers made from old corrugated sheeting. We do not clean it. Those sheets can contain asbestos and cleaning them, brushing, washing or breaking them, releases fibres. We stop, record it, and explain that removal is specialised regulated work for a licensed firm; we neither do it nor survey for it. Be realistic about outcomes. Moss comes back in Alfama faster than almost anywhere, because the lanes are narrow, the sun barely reaches the lower slopes and the humidity stays high; treatment buys time, nothing more. And cleaning is not repair. Once growth is off these roofs we generally find broken tiles and missing fixings, which we photograph and report honestly, and some coverings here have simply run out of life and need replacing. We work by planning and by weather, never on wet tiles or in wind, and ideally before the first heavy rain.

What we can genuinely do on an Alfama roof:

Services Included

• Careful hand cleaning of old single-lap tiles at low pressure
• Removing moss and lichen from shaded slopes and party-wall junctions
• Clearing gutters, hoppers and downpipes where they exist
• Anti-moss treatment only where the covering is sound enough
• Detailed photographic report for the owner or the condomínio

Areas We Serve

We cover Castelo, Mouraria, Sé, Santa Apolónia and the Escadinhas de São Miguel. There is no vehicle access to most of it, so equipment and waste are carried up and down by hand and the route is arranged with the neighbours beforehand rather than on the morning.

Work Gallery