Something has been sprayed on your building and you need it off without leaving a patch, a shadow or a panel that no longer matches the ones beside it.
On a modern facade that last risk is the real one. Most removal methods were developed for brick and render, and applied to an anodised, coated or composite panel they take the finish off along with the paint.
We identify what the surface actually is before anything is quoted, test where it cannot be seen, and work to the finish rather than through it. Same day across most of the district, seven days a week.
Do you need graffiti removed from your property? Get a fast, hassle-free quote today! Click here to get a professional graffiti removal quote or call us today on: 020 8050 5997
On An Engineered Facade The Finish Is The Building
Old Street is not Victorian brick. The stock around the roundabout is modern commercial: curtain walling, coated aluminium, anodised panels, composite cladding, powder coated louvres and structural glazing. Those materials behave nothing like masonry, and the difference decides whether a removal is routine or expensive.
The Coating Is The Product, Not A Finish Over It
Anodising is a converted surface layer, not a paint film, and powder coating is cured on. Neither can be touched up in situ. Take either back and the remedy is refinishing or replacing the panel, matched to a specification and often to a batch.
One Panel Out Of Step Is Worse Than The Tag
The eye reads a repeating elevation as one surface. Abrade or bleach a single panel and it differs in colour and reflectivity from all the others, visibly from across the road, permanently. Clients regularly tell us the correction cost more than the incident.
Chemicals Behave Differently On Metal
Alkaline and solvent removers formulated for masonry will etch the surface of aluminium or stain it, and will attack sealant and gasket lines. Run-off harmless on brick will burnish polished stone paving below. On a sealed unit an aggressive product near a failing edge seal causes a problem that shows up months later, and on painted plant enclosures it simply strips the paint.
Why The Free Route Does Not Fit Here
Local authority schemes suit many buildings. On an engineered facade they usually do not, for reasons worth knowing before signing anything.
Councils commonly ask the owner or manager to accept that the authority and its contractor are not liable for damage caused during cleaning, and that complete removal is not guaranteed. They also commonly reserve the right to treat and wash the surface or, where judged suitable, to paint over it. On a coated or anodised panel, painting over is not a repair, it is a permanent alteration to the building envelope. Most schemes are also limited to what is at ground level, accessible, and visible from the public highway, which excludes a great deal of what gets hit here.
For street furniture and the public realm, use the council route. For a facade panel, the combination of no damage liability and a possible paint-over is the wrong trade.
Buying Through A Facilities Team
The second thing about Old Street is who actually places the order. Most buildings here are professionally managed, and that changes the process rather than the work.
What Procurement Asks For
Approved contractor status, evidenced public liability cover at a stated level, task-specific method statements and risk assessments, COSHH data for anything applied, waste transfer documentation and named operatives. We hold all of it ready rather than assembling it after an order, which is usually where the delay sits.
Out Of Hours Is The Norm, Not The Exception
Entrance and lobby elevations on occupied offices are cleaned before the building opens or after it closes. That needs a permit to work, a security brief and sometimes an escort, all agreed before a date is fixed rather than negotiated at a barrier.
The Boundary Between Landlord And Tenant Moves
On a multi-let office the envelope is almost always the landlord's, even where a ground floor tenant is the one looking at the damage. A tenant reporting it is doing the right thing; a tenant paying for it usually is not.
Independents Around The Junction Are A Different Conversation
Cafes, bars and small units on the side streets have no procurement process and no budget line for this. They get a written figure, a same-day slot where possible, and a straight answer on whether it is theirs to pay for.
Selecting A Method
With this range of materials in one postcode, no single product does the job. Four approaches cover most of what we meet, chosen deliberately rather than by habit.
Low Pressure Superheated Steam
The DOFF system cleans using heat rather than force. On the brick and stone that survives among the newer stock it is the safest general option, and it avoids the pressure that opens a masonry face.
Dry Ice Blasting
The pellets turn straight to gas on impact, so there is no abrasion and no secondary waste at all. That makes it the usual choice on architectural metal and cladding, since nothing is left to run down a facade, and the stream can be controlled closely enough to work alongside sealant lines.
Solvent Gels, Correctly Specified
On coated metal and glazing the answer is a gel matched to the coating rather than the paint, dwelled and lifted rather than scrubbed. Specifying it is the skilled part.
Poultice Treatment
Draws pigment back out of porous stone and pre-cast concrete rather than driving it in, which matters on the exposed aggregate across much of this stock.
The test patch settles which one, not whatever is loaded in the van. Why the obvious shortcut is usually wrong is explained in high-pressure washing for graffiti removal, and the trade-offs are set out in chemical solutions for graffiti removal.
Reading The Surface First
A price begins with identifying the material, because the surface decides the method and the wrong one turns a cleaning job into a facade repair.
- Anodised aluminium on curtain walling and window systems, where the surface layer is converted rather than applied and cannot be made good in place.
- Powder coated metal on louvres, panels, doors and railings, cured on and unrepairable locally.
- Raw and mill finish aluminium, which stains readily from the wrong chemical.
- Stainless steel entrance surrounds and ironmongery, where directional grain has to be respected or the repair is obvious.
- Pre-cast concrete panels and exposed aggregate, porous and easily left paler where treatment was too strong.
- Laminated and structural glazing at ground and podium level, where paint lifts cleanly but coatings complicate it.
- Unpainted brick on the older buildings between the new ones, which tolerates least of all.
- Painted metal on shutters, plant enclosures and service doors at the rear.
- Hoarding board around the constant redevelopment, which attracts layered posting faster than anything else.
One rate quoted across cladding, glazing, concrete and brick tells you the elevation was never assessed. See what affects the cost of graffiti removal.
What You Are Actually Buying
Every contractor calls itself professional, so here is the specific content of the word, set against what each item does for you.
| Included | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| Facade material identified before any figure | Coating type, substrate, condition and a trial where nobody sees it. On an engineered elevation this is the whole job. |
| Task-specific method statements and risk assessments | Written for your building rather than pulled from a folder, which is what a facilities team is actually checking. |
| COSHH data for anything applied | Required by most managed buildings before a product comes on site, and the commonest cause of a contractor being turned away. |
| Evidenced public liability cover | The certificate itself, at the level your procurement specifies, not an assurance that cover exists. |
| Containment and controlled run-off | Nothing reaching paving, planting, drainage or the panels below, which on a facade is where secondary damage happens. |
| Waste transfer documentation | Residues leave with us and the paperwork follows, so your building is not holding the liability. |
| Dated images before and after | Supplied every time, for a management file, a recharge or an insurer. |
| Seven days a week, fully self-contained | Our own water and power, so neither your supply nor your staff are called on, and attendance by you is rarely needed. |
There is more detail in DIY vs hiring professionals, and on working safely in safety precautions during graffiti removal.
Response Times, Honestly
Most of this district we attend same day, seven days a week, and for accessible work at ground level that is the normal answer. Three things genuinely change it.
Permits And Escorts
On a managed office the working window is set by the permit and the availability of security, not by us. Where that is in place we are quick; where it is not, the paperwork is the lead time.
Height And Podium Level
Anything above safe reach needs access equipment and planning. A great deal of what gets hit here sits just above ground level on podium elevations, which is exactly the band most free schemes exclude.
Unidentified Coatings
Where nobody can tell us what the panel is and no facade documentation exists, we test rather than guess. That occasionally costs a day and it is the right day to spend.
For portfolios we will propose a scheduled cycle rather than reacting each time, which on a junction with this much exposure is cheaper per incident and keeps a managed elevation consistent.
Removing It Or Covering It Up
| Painting over | Professional removal | |
|---|---|---|
| On coated or anodised panels | A permanent alteration to the envelope | Original finish retained |
| Matching a repeating elevation | One panel visibly out of step, from across the road | The run reads as one surface |
| Facade warranty | An intervention somebody will have a view about | Nothing removed, substituted or altered |
| Within a year | Patch weathers differently and shows | Nothing to weather differently |
| Next incident | Another patch, then another | Same process, same result |
| Long term cost | Recurring, and ends in refinishing the elevation | One-off per incident |
The longer-term arithmetic is in the hidden costs of not removing graffiti promptly.
Do you need graffiti removed from your property? Get a fast, hassle-free quote today! Click here to get a professional graffiti removal quote or call us today on: 020 8050 5997
What To Do In The First Hour
- Photograph the affected panel and its neighbours, dated, so the run can be judged as a whole rather than in isolation.
- Find out what the panel is. Facade documentation, an O and M manual or the original contractor answers in minutes what testing takes an hour to establish.
- Keep cleaning crews away from it. A cleaner with a pad and a strong product will do more damage to a coated panel in five minutes than the tag did overnight.
- Use nothing solvent-based on metal or sealant lines until somebody has identified the coating.
- Do not pressure wash cladding or glazing. Water driven behind a panel or past a gasket causes problems that appear long after the tag has gone.
- Check whose surface it is before instructing. On a multi-let building the envelope is almost always the landlord's.
- Log it with the police as criminal damage if the fabric is yours, using the steps in reporting vandalism in London.
How The Work Is Carried Out
- Establish the material and the coating, using the facade documentation where it exists and testing where it does not.
- Agree access, the working window, the permit and any escort before a date is confirmed.
- Trial the method somewhere out of sight, on the same material, and confirm it lifts the paint without touching the finish.
- Protect gaskets, sealant lines, glazing beads, signage and the paving or planting below before anything is applied.
- Apply and dwell rather than scrub, because on a coated surface mechanical action is what causes the damage.
- Work panel by panel and check each against its neighbours before moving on, rather than assessing the whole elevation at the end.
- Collect the run-off rather than letting it find a gully or the panels below, and remove the residues with the transfer paperwork.
- Record the finished elevation and hand over dated images from both stages with a written note of the method and products used.
Full recovery is not always possible, and we will say so before a product comes out rather than afterwards. A coating already failing, an earlier removal that has taken the anodised layer, and pigment driven into open concrete each mean a realistic expectation in writing instead of a promise we cannot keep.
Where We Work Around Old Street
| Location | What we are usually called to |
|---|---|
| Old Street roundabout and the approaches | Large office elevations, podium level cladding and entrance screens seen by very heavy traffic |
| Old Street itself, east and west | Mixed modern and older frontage, ground floor retail and lobby glazing |
| Great Eastern Street and Tabernacle Street | Office entrances, service doors and rear elevations, quiet after the working day |
| City Road and Bunhill Row | Curtain walling and pre-cast panels on the taller stock, with podium elevations within reach |
| Leonard Street and the side streets | Independent cafes, bars and small units with no facilities team behind them |
| Hoardings and redevelopment sites | Board elevations that attract layered posting faster than any other surface here |
Work Completed Nearby
- Acid etched graffiti removal from glass in Shoreditch
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Farringdon
- Acid etched graffiti removal on Brick Lane
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Hackney
Who We Work For Around Old Street
| Client | What the work looks like |
|---|---|
| Facilities and building management | Entrance and podium elevations out of hours, with the documentation pack supplied before the order rather than after it |
| Managing agents and asset managers | Multi-let envelopes on scheduled cycles, with records that support recharge |
| Facade and fit-out contractors | Panels marked during works, assessed against the specification before anything is applied |
| Independent cafes, bars and small units | Single frontages, a written figure, a same-day slot where we can, and a straight answer on liability |
| Developers and hoarding owners | Board elevations cleared on a cycle, because a clean hoarding is posted less often than a layered one |
What Drives The Price
No rate card exists in this trade, and any figure offered before somebody has stood in front of the elevation is a guess. Below are the variables behind it, so that quotations can be read properly rather than compared on headline price. Broader numbers appear in how much does graffiti removal cost in London.
What The Panel Is
Glazing and sound powder coating are quick. Anodised aluminium, unidentified coatings and porous concrete are slow, because the method must be proved before it is used at scale.
Whether The Specification Is Known
A building with facade documentation is cheaper to treat than an identical building without it, purely because the testing time disappears.
Access And Permits
Ground level in daylight is one price. Podium height, out of hours working, a permit and an escort are another, and that cost sits with the building rather than with us.
How Many Panels
Panels are priced individually and the attendance is charged once, so a run costs far less per panel than the same panels reported separately over a month.
Whether It Is A Repeat
An elevation hit repeatedly at the same accessible point is the clearest case for protective treatment, because each removal costs the finish a little.
Rota Or Reaction
Measured per incident, an estate cleaned to a schedule costs considerably less than the same estate ringing round whenever something turns up.
Who Carries The Cost
Multi-Let Offices
The building envelope is the landlord's, recovered through the service charge, and that includes the panel outside a ground floor tenant's window. Occupiers report it; owners fund it. Read the demise plan rather than assuming, because on refurbished stock the line moves.
Small Independents
Your own shopfront is usually yours. The elevation above it, the flank wall and the service door generally are not. Ask us for a written itemised figure and pass it to the landlord rather than absorbing something that was never yours.
Building Managers
Whether to recharge at all is the real decision. A single panel usually costs less to absorb than to process, whereas a repeating pattern at one accessible point deserves proper costing and escalation. See who is responsible for graffiti removal.
Is A Claim Worth Making
Run the figure against the excess before a broker hears anything, and read does insurance cover graffiti removal. One panel usually falls under the excess. A run of panels, or a job where access forms a real part of the cost, usually does not.
Reducing The Next Incident
Clearing a panel settles the current problem only. On a junction this exposed, at this height, there will be another.
Anti-graffiti treatment on a modern facade is a different proposition from coating brickwork. A sacrificial film or clear protective layer can be specified for glazing and for some coated panels so the next mark comes off the protection rather than the finish, but it has to be matched to the existing coating or it changes the appearance of the elevation. That is a specification conversation with whoever holds the facade information, not a product chosen on site. How the products work is covered in anti-graffiti coatings, with options in the best coating products for London properties.
Where It Is Genuinely Worth It
Accessible ground and podium panels on an elevation hit more than once. That is a small share of most buildings and where the whole benefit sits.
Where We Will Tell You Not To Bother
Anything out of reach, anything hit once in several years, and any panel whose coating cannot be identified well enough to match a product to it. There is also separate guidance for offices in corporate office glass protection.
Areas We Cover Next To Old Street
Glass damage is a separate service, covered on the main acid etched graffiti removal page.
Old Street Graffiti Removal: Frequently Asked Questions
Our facade is anodised aluminium. Can it be cleaned safely?
Yes, with the right method proved on the same material first. Anodising is a converted surface layer rather than a paint film, so it cannot be touched up in place. Remove it and the remedy is refinishing or replacing the panel.
Why not just let the council do it for free?
On street furniture, do. On a facade panel, read what you are signing first. Authorities commonly ask you to accept that neither they nor their contractor is liable for damage, that complete removal is not guaranteed, and that they may paint over the surface where they judge it suitable.
Is painting over really that bad on cladding?
On a coated or anodised panel it is a permanent alteration to the building envelope rather than a repair. It also fails visually within a year, because a painted patch weathers differently from a factory finish beside it.
The damage is above ground level. Does that change anything?
It changes who can help. Most free schemes are limited to what is accessible, at ground level and visible from the highway, which excludes a lot of podium level damage here. It needs access equipment and scheduling.
What documentation do you supply to our facilities team?
All of it before the order: task-specific method statements and risk assessments, COSHH data for anything applied, evidenced public liability cover at your specified level, named operatives and waste transfer documentation.
We do not know what the panel is made of.
Then we test rather than guess, which occasionally costs a day. If you can find the facade documentation, an O and M manual or the original contractor, that answers in minutes what testing takes an hour to establish, and it lowers the price.
Can you work out of hours?
Yes, and on occupied offices it is usually the sensible option. The working window is set by your permit and security availability rather than by us, so agreeing that first is what makes it quick.
Will the treated panel match the others?
That is the standard we work to, and we check each panel against its neighbours before moving on rather than assessing the elevation at the end. A repeating facade is read as a single surface, so the neighbours are the only meaningful comparison.
Our cleaners tried to remove it first.
Tell us what they used. There was probably nothing on the surface for it to dissolve, but on coated metal, sealant lines or a sealed unit a strong product causes its own damage, and we would rather assess that before starting.
Can you pressure wash it off?
No, not on cladding or glazing. Water driven behind a panel or past a gasket causes problems that appear months later, long after the tag has gone and long after anybody connects the two.
What is DOFF and when would you use it here?
Low pressure superheated steam, which cleans with heat rather than force. Around Old Street we use it mainly on the older brick and stone between the newer buildings, where pressure would open the surface.
Why dry ice on a facade?
Because nothing is left behind to run down the elevation and it touches the surface lightly. It can also be controlled tightly enough to work beside sealant and gasket lines, which matters on curtain walling.
As a ground floor tenant, is the panel outside my window mine?
Almost certainly not. On a multi-let office the envelope belongs to the landlord and is recovered through the service charge. Report it, and pass on our written figure rather than funding it.
Several panels are affected along one elevation.
Priced panel by panel with the attendance charged once, which costs far less than the same panels reported separately over a month. Where a run cannot be finished in one window we sequence it and prioritise what faces the main approach.
Is protective treatment worth specifying?
On accessible ground and podium panels that have been hit more than once, yes. Out of reach, hit once in years, or where the coating cannot be identified well enough to match a product, we will tell you not to bother.
What is on the glass is not paint and will not come off.
That will be acid etching. It is a distinct service requiring a completely different process, set out in full on the acid etched graffiti removal page.
How do we get a price?
Photograph the affected panel with its neighbours, add a close view of the surface, and send the facade specification if you hold it. Those three things are usually enough to price the work and propose a method without a survey visit.
Do you need graffiti removed from your property? Get a fast, hassle-free quote today! Click here to get a professional graffiti removal quote or call us today on: 020 8050 5997