Roof cleaning issues – What can go wrong when cleaning my roof.
Honest content by 26-year experienced Roof and Exterior cleaning company based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
If you are considering have your roof cleaned. Your home is one of your biggest investments. So, you would not allow your car to get dirt, mouldy and covered in algae? So why would you let your home get so grimy.
There are several things that can go wrong with roof cleaning. Always ensure the company you engage with have an established history and experience in exterior cleaning of roofs. They have demonstratable qualification in the roof cleaning process. By using an inexperienced company can lead to lots of problems, as they may use 3000psi, high pressure jet washing.
Stone health sells the DOFF system. This cleaning system uses 900psi, 7lt per min at 150oC hot water. What does this mean. It is about half the pressure of your Karcher pressure washer you clean your car/patio with. Pre clean should be no higher than 900psi as high could cause damage to the surface of your roof tile.
Uncovering issues –
During the roof cleaning process, one of the things that can go wrong is uncovering issues on the roof. If you have had previous roofing works completed, areas re tiled and roof repairs. Roofing companies will match style and profile of roof tile but not always the colour. Sometimes they will match with a red/brown tile when yours may be light in colour after treatment of roof cleaning.
On the home assessment the roof can be covered with moss, algae, and lichen. Not until the cleaning process is underway can the roof cleaning problems be visible.
This roof after the initial cleaning process was clearly patchy. The client said it was the cleaning process. This was not the case, as you can see if it were the cleaning process the whole roof would have been uniformly damaged. As its tile by tile with UV damage over the 40 years this roof had been on this property.
By using an inexperienced roof cleaning company, they may cause more damage, by walking on the roof, they could break more tiles than they clean. Leaking roofs, especially around Velux roof lights as these hold moss around the top edge of the roof light and can cause water ingress. If the pointing around ridge or hip tiles, this may be down to frost damage of the mortar mix being too sandy. Ask how your roof cleaning company will keep your gutters and downpipes from getting blocked.
Who should I choose –
Who should you use for roof cleaning near me?
Ask for previous work complete like your home. Ask what review platforms they use and go look. Ask for local work completed, so you can have a look at what can be achieved to a home like yours. Ask if they are local? Why – well if something does go wrong, you will know they will be back to ensure your satisfaction. Have a look at their social media feeds as this would give a good indication of the works they do. If they have not posted for weeks and months, then Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) 
