How Much Does Block Paving Cleaning Cost? UK Prices

Published UK prices for cleaning block paving run from £120 to £450, and the three national authorities that price this job disagree because they size and bundle it differently. Re-sanding the joints is priced separately again, at £1.50 to £3 per square metre. Those figures were checked on 30 August 2026 and are national market ranges, not a quote for your driveway.

That is the short answer. Below is where the numbers agree, what pushes a price up, what the published South East uplift means for a driveway in Surrey, Sussex or Kent, and the one line to check on any quote.

What do Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and MyBuilder charge to clean block paving?

• MyJobQuote: block paving, cleaning only, £120 to £250 per job on a driveway of roughly 30 to 60 square metres, taking 2 to 6 hours.
• Checkatrade: driveway cleaning generally, £250 to £400 per job, with a medium driveway averaging around £350 and taking 6 to 7 hours. No block paving specific band is published.
• MyBuilder: block paving £280 to £450 on a 40 square metre driveway, against £250 to £400 for a standard 40 square metre driveway across all surfaces.

Those are the three national authorities that price this job. The fourth, Which?, publishes no cost guide for driveway, patio or block paving cleaning as a trade service, so no figure here is attributed to it.

The per square metre figures agree far better than the per job bands. Checkatrade and MyBuilder both publish £8.50 to £15.50 per square metre for driveway cleaning. MyJobQuote publishes no headline rate per square metre on its cleaning guide, though its sealing guide lists pressure washing at £2 to £5 per square metre as an add-on. The divergence is in how the job is bundled and sized, not in what the work is worth by area.

Two more figures matter before you compare. Checkatrade notes that some tradespeople charge by the hour or the day rather than by area, publishing £10 to £25 per hour or £150 to £250 per day. And MyBuilder's separate pressure washing guide carries a lower band than its cleaning guide: it puts the UK range at £100 to £400, and says a standard 40 to 50 square metre driveway typically costs £100 to £400 all in, while its own size table prices a medium 30 to 50 square metre drive at £150 to £250. One source can give two answers.

Why does block paving cost more to clean than concrete or tarmac?

Block paving is consistently the dearest common driveway surface to clean, and both MyJobQuote and MyBuilder price it that way. On MyJobQuote's surface table, for the same 30 to 60 square metre driveway, concrete cleaning only is £100 to £200 and tarmac is £100 to £220, while block paving is £120 to £250. Resin comes in level with block paving at £120 to £250. MyBuilder shows the same shape at 40 square metres: block paving £280 to £450, concrete £250 to £400, tarmac or asphalt £200 to £350, resin bound £200 to £350 and gravel £100 to £200.

The reason is the joints. A concrete drive is one continuous surface, so a lance can be walked across it at a steady pace. Block paving is hundreds of separate units, and the dirt, moss and weed root sits in the sand filled joints rather than on the block faces. MyBuilder calls it the most labour-intensive surface to clean correctly. It also creates a second job concrete does not have, putting the sand back. Our guide on whether pressure washing damages block paving covers the detail: a washer that cleans the joints properly also empties them.

Should re-sanding be included in the price?

This is where people get caught, and unusually all three authorities say the same thing. Checkatrade tells homeowners to ask whether resanding is included, because pressure washing can wash sand out of the joints and it may need replacing afterwards. MyBuilder is blunter: for block paving, always confirm whether re-sanding is in the quote, because the kiln-dried sand must be replaced to keep the blocks stable and prevent weed regrowth. MyJobQuote states that its published prices assume a standard driveway in average condition, and that block paving re-sanding may increase the total cost.

The published rates for the re-sanding itself differ a little, and all three sources name the same material going back into the joints: kiln-dried sand.

• MyJobQuote: joint re-sanding at £2 to £3 per square metre, an additional service on its driveway sealing cost guide.
• MyJobQuote, same page: kiln-dried sand itself at around £1 per square metre, the material rather than the labour.
• MyBuilder: block paving re-sanding, often needed after a deep clean to restabilise the joints, at around £1.50 to £2.50 per square metre.
• Checkatrade: no separate re-sanding rate published, only the instruction to ask whether it is included and the note that the price rises if resanding is needed.

On a 50 square metre driveway MyJobQuote's band works out at £100 to £150 and MyBuilder's at £75 to £125. What matters far more than that gap is whether the number is on the quote at all. A quote that comes in cheaper by the £75 to £150 the re-sand would have cost, because it silently leaves the joints empty, is not cheaper, it is unfinished, and MyBuilder says washing block paving without re-sanding leaves an unstable surface that weeds recolonise quickly.

Two things to be straight about. Not every clean needs a full re-sand: if the joints were well filled and the surface is lightly soiled, a careful clean leaves most of the sand in place. And we publish no price of our own here, because this guide reports what the national authorities publish. Our driveway cleaning page explains how we work, and quotes are free and carry no obligation.

What actually moves the price

Every factor below is named by at least one of the three authorities that price this job.

• Area: every source prices by square metre or by a size band, so the first thing an honest quote does is measure.
• Condition: MyJobQuote adds around £50 to £100 for heavy soiling or moss. MyBuilder says a drive cleaned annually is a quick job while one untouched for five years is considerably more work.
• Weeds, moss and algae: MyJobQuote says pre-treatment is often included in the overall quote, but where charged separately it adds around £2 to £5 per square metre. MyBuilder says chemical pre-treatment for heavy moss or weed growth is often an add-on rather than in the base price.
• Whether re-sanding is included: flagged by Checkatrade, MyBuilder and MyJobQuote as the most common thing missing from a block paving quote.
• Whether sealing is included: all three split cleaning only from cleaning plus sealing, and the two prices are nowhere near each other.
• Access: MyBuilder names vehicles, gates, restricted access, overhanging trees and planting close to the driveway edge. Checkatrade adds awkward parking, water access and drainage.
• Damage: Checkatrade says more careful cleaning around damaged areas costs more. MyJobQuote prices crack repairs separately at £30 to £80.

What do the national prices mean in Surrey, Sussex and Kent?

Location is published three different ways, which tells you how soft the number is. Checkatrade says homeowners in London pay around £45 more for the overall job than those in the North. MyJobQuote says around £50 to £100 more than the North of the UK. MyBuilder is the only one giving a percentage, and the only one naming this part of the country: London and the South East typically run 15 to 25 per cent higher than the national average for driveway cleaning.

Applied to MyJobQuote's national block paving band of £120 to £250, that 15 to 25 per cent uplift lands at roughly £138 to £313. That is arithmetic on this page, not a figure any source publishes. None of the four authorities publishes a Surrey, Sussex or Kent band, so there is no local price to quote and this page does not invent one. We work across all three counties and price each driveway on its own measurements.

Sealing is a different job and a different price

Sealing gets bundled into cost guides so often that people assume it is part of a clean. It is not, and the price gap is large. MyJobQuote puts block paving cleaning plus sealing at £250 to £450 against £120 to £250 for cleaning alone, and prices sealing itself at £7 to £15 per square metre on block paving. MyBuilder puts cleaning and sealing combined at £400 to £700 and says that beats booking the two separately. Checkatrade publishes driveway sealing at £5 to £17 per square metre.

There is a sequencing point too. MyBuilder sets the order out as clean, re-sand, then seal, and says that adding a sealant after re-sanding locks in the sand and provides additional protection. So a quote putting sealer straight onto empty joints has skipped a step.

Sealing is not something we sell. It is a separate job with its own materials, drying times and maintenance cycle, and MyJobQuote puts that cycle at every three to five years on block paving. Our guide on whether to seal a patio or driveway after cleaning sets out the arguments on both sides.

How to compare two quotes without getting caught out

The useful skill is telling whether two quotes describe the same work. Checkatrade publishes a checklist of what a good quote should confirm: the size of the area, the cleaning method, whether weed treatment is included, and whether resanding or sealing is in the price. Five questions do the rest.

• How many square metres are you pricing? If two quotes assume different areas, nothing else on them is comparable.
• Is joint re-sanding included, and the kiln-dried sand with it? MyJobQuote prices the labour at £2 to £3 per square metre and the sand at around £1 per square metre, so a missing re-sand is real money, not a rounding error.
• Is weed and moss pre-treatment in the price or an extra? MyBuilder says it is usually an add-on. MyJobQuote says it is often included in the quote, but where charged separately it adds around £2 to £5 per square metre.
• Is this a job price or a rate? Checkatrade notes some traders charge £10 to £25 per hour or £150 to £250 per day, and an open ended day rate on a big drive can land well above a fixed price.
• Does the figure include VAT? No source states whether its published figures include VAT, and Checkatrade only lists it as a line to check. Ask, and get the answer in writing.

One more thing, because it cuts against our own interest. If your block paving has sunk or the blocks rock underfoot, cleaning is the wrong purchase. MyBuilder puts cracks, sunken sections and damaged edging in a different category from cleaning, and points readers at its driveway repair cost guide rather than a cleaning price. That is repair or relaying work, and not work we do or sell.

Short of that, the published prices favour regular cleaning. MyJobQuote prices a professional power wash on block paving at £150 to £300 and suggests once a year, or as needed. Our guide on how often to clean a driveway and patio covers what that means for a shaded surface in the South East.