Article Advise

submitted: Jul 30th 2008 | by: JohnRedihan | Total views: 1 | Word Count: 886 | |

Your roof is dirty, you can see black stains, moss, and lichen or maybe some other type of fungus. Now the question is "how do I clean it?"

Other homes on your street seem to have the same problem. When you searched the internet, the problem seems to be everywhere.

How can something grow on your roof? Quite simply, all it takes is food, water and air. The food, depending on your roofing material is: for asphalt roofs, the limestone filler used to thicken the shingles, for wood shingle roofs it is just the wood. As you probably noticed, your roof is clean on some sides but dirty on others, this because the shaded parts or north facing roofs hold moisture longer because of lack of direct sunshine providing water for this growth problem. If you notice long black streaks or stains, your roof is infected with black algae, if you can see flowering growths that could be either lichen, moss or a combination of both.

Is it damaging my roof? Yes, I have seen moss eat through two layers of shingles right into the wood underlayment, black algae is a surface feeder, eating the shingle granules, while spreading over the roof. Just look in your gutter of the infected side, I guarantee it is full of discarded shingle granules. So, yes it can cut a 40 year shingles life expectancy in half or worse.

What can I do about it? 3 choices here, clean it yourself, hire a professional roof cleaning company or replace it. Let's examine these three options.

Replacement - This is costly but a route many home owners take, primarily because they are not aware that the roof may be cleaned. This will not solve the problem long-term, new growth will form over time and you will be faced with this situation again. There are new "algae resistant" shingles available but they are only warranteeing them for ten years.

Hire a roof cleaning company - Good choice but whom? They are around, usually listed in the yellow pages under "roof cleaning" or "power washing". What to look in a roof cleaning company is very important. 1. References 2. Specific insurance coverage, a painters, carpenters or any construction general liability policy does not cover roof cleaning, check it out 3. inquire about their cleaning product, there are a lot of products out there that will clean a roof but if they heavily chemical laden they will dry out the roof shingle to such a point that a few months down the road on a windy day, shingle pieces will be flying. These product will also stain the face of your home, kill plants and grass, you want them to use something "environmentally safe", not just "bio-degradable" that only means that eventually it will disappear, there are bio-degradable plastics available but you wouldn't want them laying on your lawn for the next 20 years, would you? So make sure the product is environmentally safe 4. Portfolio, they should have before and after pictures of jobs that they have done and you should take the time to drive by one of the homes and make sure that they didn't just download pictures off of the internet 5. Do they have a home improvement license? They should. If they cannot provide those 5 things, move on to the next company.

Clean it yourself - Dangerous work! But achievable if you consider yourself the "handyman" type and the most cost efficient solution. Buying the right product is the trick; don't even consider bleach it is a disaster waiting to happen buy a product specially designed for roof cleaning. Don't fall for the "just spray it on and nature will clean it" product sales pitch, that's BS, it might work but it would be years before it would be clean and you would have to keep reapplying it. No, there is only one way, get up there, stage the roof safely along the bottom even if it is walk able the roof will become incredibly slippery, spray the product on, usually through a "garden style" sprayer, take out a medium bristle scrub brush and scrub the infected area keeping the area moist while scrubbing then take a regular garden hose and wash it off, it may only become 80% clean at first but all the loose, dead fungus will wash off with the next rain.

When cleaning is complete, there is only one proven way to keep your roof clean forever, and that is by applying a strip of zinc flashing across the ridge of your roof. Examples of how well this works are everywhere, just look at any dirty roof and you will see clean areas underneath any metal objects that is because when it rains, metal ions flow off of the metal coating the roof below it, the ions in the metal will not allow fungus growth. Boat motors have zinc on them to prevent algae growth, the theory has been proved for years it is highly effective and zinc is cost efficient only costing about one dollar per foot. When buying zinc, you will need a product that is at least 3 1/2 inches wide, a rule of thumb is one inch for every 10 feet of roof below it, the wider the better. Keep safety in mind when cleaning, John Redihan

About the Author

John Redihan is the owner of Wash Safe Industries of Brewster, Ma. Wash Safe produces roof washing products , buying the right washing product can make the difference in how washed your roof comes out, zinc ridge flashing is also available through Wash Safe

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