House washing for homes in the Yarramalong Valley

What does a Yarramalong farmhouse or valley home need from a wash?

The valley is Darkinjung country, and the name is usually traced to words for horse and place. Before the 1850s timber cutters drove oxen teams in from Wollombi and Maitland to log it, and in 1856 the Stinson and Waters families of Maitland became its first permanent settlers.

Horse studs, turf farms and citrus fill the valley now, along with a macadamia farm and a lavender farm, and the township keeps a Rural Fire Station, a general store and a hall. The former St Barnabas Church, built around 1885, ranks among the oldest churches in the council area and sits under a permanent conservation order.

Homes averaged 3.7 bedrooms in the 2021 count. Where a house has COLORBOND steel walls or roofing, the maker's care advice is to hose down the sheltered spots that miss the rain, under eaves, along the tops of garage doors and beneath eave gutters, at least twice a year. A Yarramalong house wash takes in those spots as well as the main walls.

Key figures

1856

first permanent settlement

1885

St Barnabas Church built, about

3.7

average bedrooms per home in 2021

Sources

• Wikipedia, Yarramalong, New South Wales
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats, Yarramalong
• BlueScope TB-4, maintenance of exterior coated steel (January 2021)
• NSW Spatial Services, Administrative Boundaries (postcode, council, distance, neighbours)