Specialists in Roofing Maintenance and Restoration
Pressure cleaning for roofs, driveways, concrete, pavers, car parks, walls and sandstone, across Newtown, Marrickville, Balmain and Glebe.
Get a free quote. Send your details and we will get back to you with a clear price.
Our Inner West work is fully insured. NSW contractor licence 500439C, held by Sergio Olea.
Terraces sit close together, the courtyards are small and shaded, and a lot of the roofs are old slate or terracotta. That combination holds moisture, and moss, lichen and algae follow. The catch is that these are exactly the materials that do not tolerate a hard blast: old slate delaminates, weathered terracotta loses its surface, and water driven under a lap on a low-pitch roof ends up inside the house. So the pressure gets set to the material, and on some roofs the honest answer is that pressure cleaning is not the right tool at all.
The Inner West problem is shade, and it is not the trees alone.
Terraces and semis sit close together, so a wall or a neighbouring roof keeps part of your roof out of the sun for most of the day. Add the big old figs, brush box and plane trees along these streets and you get constant leaf drop onto a surface that never fully dries. Moss starts in the valleys and along the laps, and it holds water against the tile long after the rain has stopped.
Much of the housing here is original terracotta, now well past the age where the glaze has worn through. Lichen grows down into the pores of a tile like that, which is why an Inner West roof that was cleaned hard a few years ago often looks worse now than before it was touched. Treat first, then the lowest pressure that lifts the growth.
Courtyards, shared paving and the brick walkways between terraces green up for the same reason, and they get a gentler pressure than an open driveway would.
Slate, old terracotta, concrete tile, metal, sandstone and brick each take different pressure. We check before anything is turned on.
Moss, lichen and algae cleaned back, working with the fall of the roof rather than forcing water up under the laps.
The small shaded areas that go green and slippery first.
Brick, render and sandstone that have picked up grime and mould on the shaded side.
Everything that comes off the roof lands somewhere, so we clear it out of the gutters rather than leave it there.
Surrounds, windows and the neighbouring paving are rinsed off once the work is finished.
Call 0452 223 327 or send the form with your address and what needs cleaning.
We check what the surfaces are made of and what condition they are in, and quote it.
We clean at a pressure suited to the material, clear the gutters and rinse the area down.
Monkeys Roofing does pressure cleaning across the Inner West and the rest of Sydney. On heritage roofs we will tell you when cleaning is not worth the risk to the material.
With care, and sometimes not at all. Slate delaminates and old slate is brittle, so a hard blast can turn a sound roof into a leaking one. We look at the condition first and tell you honestly whether it should be done.
It can, if the pressure is wrong. Old lime mortar and weathered pointing are soft. That is a reason to match the pressure to the surface, not a reason to skip the job.
Yes. Small courtyards, paths and steps are a normal part of what we do here, and they are usually the surfaces that go green first.
If the roof or the courtyard has gone green and slippery, we can look at what it is made of before anything is turned on. Call 0452 223 327 or send the form for a free quote.
Newtown · Enmore · Erskineville · Camperdown · Marrickville · Dulwich Hill · Petersham · Stanmore · Lewisham · Leichhardt · Lilyfield · Rozelle · Balmain · Birchgrove · Glebe · Annandale · Ashfield · Summer Hill · Haberfield · St Peters
Also servicing surrounding Inner West suburbs. See our Inner West roofing page, or how we handle pressure cleaning across Sydney.
Australian standards and Code requirements we work to, with the source for each.
SafeWork NSW reports that most serious and fatal falls happen from roofs, ladders and building edges at four metres or under, and a fall from two metres can kill. A single-storey Sydney house is squarely inside that range.
Source: SafeWork NSW, falls from heights
Observatory Hill has averaged around 1,213 mm of rain a year on records kept since 1858. Everything on the roof, from panels and skylights to gutters, has to keep working through that volume of water and the grit it carries off the surface.
NSW work health and safety law requires a safe work method statement for construction work where a person could fall more than two metres. Single-storey gutter and roof work clears that line, which is why the job is planned, harnessed or edge-protected before anyone gets on the roof.
Source: SafeWork NSW, working at heights
Last updated: 8 October 2026
Pressure cleaning in the Inner West has its own rules: heritage areas and tight access all change how the job is done. Everything below links to the council or standard it comes from, so you can check it yourself.
In the Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal catchments, 885 of 1,446 and 690 of 1,036 flood planning lots are affected by overland flow alone. Where your roof water is discharged, and whether it is piped properly to the kerb, matters more than how close you are to a watercourse.
Source: Inner West Council, Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal FRMSP 2020The whole suburb is a conservation area, recognised as Australia first planned garden suburb, with a period of significance from about 1900 to the 1940s. In practice almost every roof job in Haberfield is a heritage job.
Source: Inner West Council, C54 Haberfield HCAThe DCP limits replacement roofing to unglazed terracotta Marseilles tiles, terracotta shingle tiles, Welsh slate, or non-reflective corrugated galvanised steel, and the steel only at the rear or on skillion roofs. Finials and ridge capping have to be kept and reinstated.
Source: Inner West DCP 2016, Chapter E2, controls C17-C21Haberfield does not permit skylights on the front or side of the main roof and does not permit dormers at all. Hot water and solar tanks cannot sit on the roof either: they go inside the roof space or out of public view.
Source: Inner West DCP 2016, Chapter E2, controls C11-C15 and C89The Marrickville Valley flood study found 3,989 properties taking more than 150mm of water in a 1 per cent storm, and 3,151 properties still flooded to that depth in a storm as common as a 2 year event. Flat ground and slow drainage are the cause, so undersized downpipes and blocked gutters bite in ordinary rain.
Source: Inner West Council, Marrickville Valley Flood StudyWe cover Haberfield, Ashfield, Summer Hill, Croydon, Leichhardt, Annandale, Balmain, Rozelle, Lilyfield, Marrickville, Dulwich Hill, Petersham, Stanmore, Newtown, Enmore, St Peters, Tempe, Sydenham and Lewisham.
Inner West gutters overflow easily because much of the area is flat and drains slowly, so even ordinary storms flood homes. The Marrickville Valley flood study found 3,151 properties taking more than 150mm of water in a storm as common as a 2 year event, and in the Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal catchments most flood-affected lots are hit by overland flow alone.
In the Inner West it depends on whether the house sits in a heritage conservation area such as Haberfield or Annandale. Haberfield is a conservation area from end to end, and its DCP limits replacement roofing to unglazed terracotta Marseilles tiles, terracotta shingle tiles, Welsh slate or non-reflective corrugated galvanised steel, the steel only at the rear or on skillion roofs.
In Haberfield only at the rear: the Inner West DCP does not permit skylights on the front or side of the main roof there, and does not permit dormers at all. Hot water and solar tanks cannot sit on a Haberfield roof either.
Over $5,000 your roofer needs a licence and a written contract. The deposit is capped at 10%, and over $20,000 you must see the…
Read the guideHaberfield is a conservation area from end to end. Four permitted roofing materials, no dormers, skylights off the street side, and asbestos in almost…
Read the guideCouncil flood studies show the Inner West floods in common storms, not just rare ones, and that overland flow does the damage. What that…
Read the guide
