Roof cleaning and house washing in Caves Beach

What do the big houses on Caves Beach's western side need?

The locality was once called The Plains, then Plains Beach, and in 1960 it was renamed Mawson after the man who had driven its development since the 1940s; residents objected, and the name Caves Beach came back in 1965. Its first subdivisions date from 1935. The west of the suburb is almost all homes, with the shops and cafes to the east and the beach beyond them.

Separate houses made up 85.5% of occupied dwellings in 2021, and many are large. Between the lake and the surf, roofs collect salt and grime as well as moss, and Monier warns that a pressure washer can damage roof tiles, so the tiles here are cleaned with a soft wash at low pressure and the walls with a house wash.

Key figures

1965

the name Caves Beach is restored after a spell as Mawson

85.5%

of occupied dwellings were separate houses in 2021

Sources

• Wikipedia, Caves Beach
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats, Caves Beach
• Monier (CSR), Roof Cleaning and Maintenance
• NSW Spatial Services, Administrative Boundaries (postcode, council, distance, neighbours)