First impressions, on the coast
Green walls and grey walkways cost you customers before they walk in
Every building in Southwest Nova Scotia fights the same fog, salt, and shade a house does, and a business gets judged on it faster. A green north wall on a motel, a slick front walk at a plaza, algae on the vinyl of a rental unit: tenants and travellers notice, and so does the Google review.
The Tri-County season has a rhythm. The CAT ferry starts sailing in mid-May, Seafest fills Yarmouth in July, Digby has Scallop Days and the Wharf Rat Rally, and Clare has the Festival acadien. The spring window before the first sailing is when a building should be washed, and it's when we book up.
We keep it simple: one quote, one contact, work done outside your busy hours where possible, and we'll tell you up front what will and won't come clean.
How we work with businesses
- Walkthrough or photos
Smaller buildings quote from photos like a house does. Plazas, motels, and multi-unit properties usually get a quick walkthrough so the number is right the first time.
- A written scope
Which walls, which walkways, what's included, what's excluded, and when. No surprises on the invoice.
- Scheduled around you
Early mornings, evenings, or the quiet day of the week. Entrances stay open, customers stay dry, and we cone off what we're working on.
- Soft wash the building, surface clean the concrete
Low pressure and a cleaning solution on siding, stucco, and painted block. A surface cleaner on walkways, patios, and drive lanes for an even finish.
- Recurring, if it makes sense
Annual pre-season washes or a spring-and-fall schedule for multi-unit properties. Same price logic, same person showing up.
What a typical scope looks like
Every building is different, so there's no fixed package. These are the usual starting points by type of business; your written scope lists exactly what's in and what's out.
Restaurant & drive-thru
- Dumpster pad and bin enclosure
- Drive-thru lane and patio
- Entrance walk and steps
- Front wall and signage base
Motel, inn & B&B
- Full building exterior soft wash
- Walkways, stairs and pool surround
- Railings and balcony faces
- Dumpster pad
Plaza & storefront
- Storefront walls and signage bases
- Sidewalk, entrances and steps
- Parking-lot walkways
- Shared dumpster pad
Apartments & rentals
- Siding, one visit per building
- Entrances, walkways and steps
- Whole portfolio on one schedule, one invoice
Wharf, shed & fish plant
- Exterior walls and gear-shed siding
- Concrete pads and walkways
- Salt film rinsed off the whole building
Fleet, trucks & heavy equipment
- Cab, box and trailer exteriors, reefers included
- Fishing, forestry and farm equipment
- Road salt and grime rinsed off frames and undercarriage where reachable
- On your yard, on a schedule
Church, hall & municipal
- Painted wood or vinyl exterior, gentle mix
- Entrance steps and accessible ramps
- Walkways and parking pads
What we don't do
- Hot-water, steam or graffiti removal
- Interior work, windows above one storey or mechanical units up top
- Food-plant interior sanitation (exteriors only)
Businesses this is right for
Property managers: we can quote a portfolio at once and keep one schedule across your units. Tell us how many doors and where.
Dumpster pad cleaning
The pad under and around the bin is where the grease goes. Bags leak, bins drip, and years of it soak into the concrete. The pad, not the bin, is the odour source, and in fog and summer humidity it's also the reason the flies, rats, and gulls keep coming back. Pest control on a dirty pad is a losing fight, and a greasy pad is a slip hazard for the staff carrying bags across it.
We degrease the pad and the enclosure walls, let the cleaner dwell, then surface clean the concrete edge to edge. The wash water is contained, not hosed toward the catch basin, and discharged only where the bylaw allows. Restaurants, grocers, motels, and apartment buildings usually run this monthly or quarterly, and it pairs naturally with a walkway or drive-lane clean on the same visit.
- The Nova Scotia Food Retail & Food Services Code requires outside waste containers to be “maintained in a manner that does not attract pests” and “cleaned regularly” (s. 2.11(e)), outside bins to be “vermin and insect proof” and not “cause a nuisance” (s. 4.1.13), and every operator to keep the premises “free of conditions that lead to the harbouring or breeding of pests” (s. 4.3.1). The Food Safety Regulations (N.S. Reg. 206/2005, s. 29) require a sanitation program that manages “all waste streams in and surrounding the food establishment.”
- The Health Protection Act (s. 2, s. 20) lets a medical officer order any business, food or not, to fix “a condition of premises” that may threaten public health.
- The Town of Yarmouth Solid Waste Resource Bylaw says commercial containers “shall be kept clean and in a good state of repair” (s. 4.35(e)) and owners must keep the container “in a manner that is not unsightly and does not cause a nuisance or health related problem” and “keep the area surrounding the container free from any type of waste” (s. 4.36). The Municipality of the District of Yarmouth by-law (S-088-24, s. 6.13.9.5) says the same for the county.
- The wash water is regulated too. The Fisheries Act (s. 36(3)) bans depositing anything deleterious where it can reach fish habitat, which is what a storm drain is, and the Town's Sewer Discharge Bylaw allows nothing but clean water into a storm sewer (s. 3.5) and caps grease to the sanitary sewer at 100 mg/L (s. 3.2(m)). That's why we contain it.
What affects the price
Every property is different, so we quote each job rather than post a flat rate. Quotes are free, usually done from photos without a site visit, and the price we agree on before work starts is the price you pay. What moves the number:
- Wall area and storeys, and how much of it is reachable from the ground
- Concrete square footage and how heavy the grime and gum are
- Access and hours: night or early-morning work is scheduled, not surcharged, but it's planned
- Whether it's a one-time clean or a recurring schedule (recurring is priced accordingly)
- Location: Yarmouth-area jobs book individually; Digby and Shelburne-side jobs run on route days