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Styles Façade Solutions® (formerly Thomann-Hanry®) has pulled together a selection of key façade cleaning information to help you understand façade cleaning and restoration. Knowing how best to deal with the issues that can affect your commercial or heritage building’s façade requires an understanding of several different areas, including façade materials, cleaning methods, restoration processes and heritage styling.

Our unique, scaffold-free Façade Gommage cleaning process helps return your commercial or heritage building to its original grandeur, gently removing pollution, staining and biological growth without the need for harsh abrasives. Combined with our additional surveying, restoration and redecoration services, the team at Styles Façade Solutions® is ideally placed to handle any façade-related project, whatever its scale or complexity.

Simply click on the relevant sections below to find the façade cleaning information you need or get in touch with our team directly if you have a specific query about your building’s façade.

A cherry picker access platform, mounted on a truck, extends high between narrow London buildings to reach the upper storeys of a period stone building undergoing Façade Gommage cleaning. The truck is parked in a busy street lined with ornate stone façades, shopfronts advertising key cutting and shoe repairs, and an Underground station sign. Protective plastic sheeting covers nearby windows, and scaffolding branded "Restoring Excellence" is visible at street level as work continues overhead. How to clean facades

How to clean façades

Façade refurbishment and restoration projects are complex undertakings. All too often, timescales and budgets overrun due to a lack of knowledge about…

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Detailed close-up of an ornate stone cornice on a historic building, featuring intricately carved decorative mouldings including egg-and-dart patterns, dentil blocks, and circular roundels with floral motifs. Grotesque carved figures peer out beneath the roofline, which is topped with terracotta ridge tiles and a tall decorative chimney stack. Patches of dark biological growth are visible on the underside of the eaves, contrasting with the cleaner, pale stone elsewhere, highlighting areas where soiling has accumulated over time. cleaning historic buildings

How to clean your historic building

Styles Façade Solutions® (formerly Thomann-Hanry®) has built a reputation for delivering unparalleled cleaning and restoration works to some of the UK’s most…

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An operative in full protective gear, including a hooded suit, respirator mask, and high-vis sleeve, performs Façade Gommage cleaning from an access platform, directing a handheld nozzle at a building surface within an enclosed dust-containment tent. Extraction equipment and hoses hang overhead, extracting airborne particles as the fine abrasive spray removes surface grime. The scene is set on Great Winchester Street, EC2, with a CCTV camera mounted on the adjacent pale stone building and industrial ventilation ducting visible nearby.

Façade Gommage

The Façade Gommage cleaning process is a new approach that lifts decades of accumulated dirt in a matter of days, all without…

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Elaborate Victorian commercial façade in London combining stone and brick façade materials. Ornately carved Portland stone dressings feature arched windows, decorative corbels and intricate relief carvings, contrasting with bands of red and buff brick above. Cast-iron balustrading adds further detail to this richly ornamented building. The interplay of these façade materials showcases the craftsmanship and architectural grandeur typical of London's late Victorian commercial buildings. facade materials

Glossary of Stone and other Façade Materials

A good understanding of facade materials used to construct historic and commercial buildings is vital to best understand how to maintain them…

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Panoramic aerial view of the City of London skyline, featuring iconic skyscrapers including the Gherkin's distinctive glass dome, the sharply pointed Leadenhall Building, and the curved Walkie-Talkie tower. Historic domes and spires rise among modern glass towers, with numerous construction cranes signalling ongoing development. Warm golden sunlight bathes the scene, contrasting historic and contemporary architecture beneath a partly cloudy sky.

London: An architectural journey through time…

As one of the world’s great capitals, London’s illustrious history is reflected in nearly 2000 years of architecture. Less planned and coordinated…

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Close-up angled view of a cleaned Portland stone façade at Somerset House, London, showing pale, uniformly light stonework with crisp rusticated blockwork, arched window bays, and carved decorative roundels and figurative sculptures. The masonry appears bright and free of black soiling, illustrating the results of a Façade Gommage cleaning treatment by Styles Façade Solutions®

Portland stone: The stone at the heart of London

Portland stone is one of the key building materials used to clad some of the most important buildings across the capital. It…

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Street-level view of Regent Street, London, showing a red double-decker bus signed "453 Deptford Bridge" travelling past classical cream-coloured stone buildings with ornate columns and balconies. Pedestrians cross near a "Piccadilly Circus" bus stop sign, a cyclist rides past, and shopfronts including Uniqlo and Granado are visible. Sunlight highlights the curved street architecture beneath a pale overcast sky. Photo credit: Mae Black on Unsplash. Regent Street Disease

Regent Street Disease and how to fix it

Regent Street Disease: The silent destroyer threatening your historic or commercial building. Officially known as Steel Frame Corrosion Regent Street Disease, as…

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Dramatic upward angle of a pale limestone building corner, showing decorative dentil moulding, projecting cornices, and cream-framed windows set within angled bays. Strong sunlight casts sharp geometric shadows across the clean, well-defined stonework, highlighting crisp architectural detailing and consistent colour throughout the façade. This kind of pristine, uniform finish reflects the results achievable through professional CPD façade cleaning, which restores stonework to its original appearance while carefully preserving delicate carved and moulded features. CPD facade cleaning

CPD on Façade Cleaning

As an integral part of your Continued Professional Development (CPD), let Styles Façade Solutions® (formerly Thomann-Hanry®) help develop your understanding of commercial…

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Angled view of a modern office building's pale stone façade, photographed from below in bright sunlight against a clear blue sky. Large windows with dark metal frames are set within deep, angular stone reveals, creating strong geometric shadows across the clean, uniform panels. The stonework appears bright and evenly toned, showcasing the kind of pristine, long-lasting finish achievable with surface protection from the Aqua Fend® range, which helps preserve a building's original colour and structure against weathering and pollution.

Introducing Aqua Fend®: Advanced surface protection

Once your commercial or heritage building has been cleaned, you will want to give the façade's surface protection and keep it pristine…

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Halloween-themed promotional header for "Styles Façade Solutions Presents: House of Horrors," featuring a vintage black-and-white photo of a woman with curled hair screaming in shock, hand raised defensively. The title appears in dripping, blood-red horror-style lettering against a cracked, peeling white plaster wall background. The Styles Façade Solutions® logo sits top right, with a solid red banner across the bottom of the image. commercial building facade surveys

House of Horrors

WARNING! Building managers of a nervous disposition are advised NOT to continue to this page due to the unspeakable horrors displayed beyond…

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