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24 YEAR PROFESSIONAL EXPERT'S ROOF TECHNICAL BULLETIN.
Written by Chuck Bergman on 08/27/13
SHINGLED ROOFING:
I have cleaned roofs in Charlotte County Florida since 1989. I started out pressure washing them, but I could see, with shingled roofs, severe granule loss taking place on the shingles and turning the pressure down didn’t solve the problem. Why? First off, it takes a certain amount of pressure to remove the black algae – period!
So, if it requires say 1000 psi of pressure, which will work to blast the black coloration from shingles, then it’s just semantics.
If at 1000 psi I can clean a roof holding my gun tip say 1 foot away, then, if I turn the pressure down to 1/2 that, I have to move in to 6″ away, bringing the pressure right back to 1000 psi. Another words nothing is accomplished!
TILE ROOFING:
With tile, most are manufactured with at least a light glazing on top of a slurry coating {paint}
Pressure washing tile, requires a higher blasting pressure, starting at 1500psi up to 3000psi.
This can remove or dull that glazing. If the roof has been pressure cleaned in the past and that glazing is mostly gone already, then the slurry coating, creating your roofs coloring begins to be removed. This will turn a red tile roof into a pinkish roof. It will turn other colors pale as well. Eventually, it will reach the plain cement the tile is made of, showing bare cement areas.
Some companies have found an easier pressure cleaning tool, called a “Surface Cleaning Machine” and to cover the fact that these machines use pressure to the extreme, they give their cleaning method nice names like shampooing your roof. These machines were originally designed to clean flat surfaces { I own 2 } and are great on driveways, sidewalks and cement parking lots, where almost no damage can occur. They are the worst thing you can do to a tile roof though. The powerful jets are angled to cut sideways, also, they are set at an exact amount of inches above whatever surface they are set on. With flat cement that perfect! Tile is not a flat surface, so the high parts get blasted badly, while the lower portions of the tile, barely come clean-if at all. If you went up and inspected such a cleaning job, you would find many small black lines of leftover algae. If any algae is left, it will continue growing and return with a vengeance within 1-2 years! A chemically cleaned, soft-washed tile roof is easily evenly coated and all algae is killed and disintegrated. That’s why a Non-Pressure Roof cleaning, as explained below, lasts just about twice as long as any type of pressure washing / shampoo style cleaning will.
Fortunately, you are not stuck, having to accept roof damage in order to have a nice, clean, healthy roof!
Many years ago, some of the roofing manufacturers, came up with a formula to “chemically clean” roofs, using no pressure at all. It’s called by a few names “Non-Pressure” “No-Pressure” Soft-Washing” and “Chemical Cleaning”
I started using this method and chemicals specified by the roofing manufacturers and their Manufacturers Association {ARMA} back in the 1990′s and found that it cleaned tile just as well as it cleaned shingles!
It calls for a mixture of about a 3-5% total solution of Chlorine Bleach and a little TSP {Tri Sodium Phosphate}
I then add a commercial soap / surfactant to that mix, to thicken the mixture, so it won't run off the roof.
Nowadays, there’s always someone trying to sell you something. Non Bleach alternative chemicals are on the market and I try them as they come out. They all use the “Eco-Friendly” “Green” approach, to sell their chemicals with. The products I have tried do not tell you what chemicals are in the product. So, are they safe and eco-friendly? Who knows? We do know bleach though! We wash our clothes in it, disinfect our kitchen food preparation areas with it, swim in it in our pools and drink it in our city water! When it dries, it turns back into salt, which is what it is made from.
You can go to my website and click on “MANUFACTURER SPECIFICS” and read directly from the makers of your roofing, that what I am saying is what the makers of your roofing also say. Or just go there directly, using this click-able link: http://www.bergmanpressurewashing.co...Specifics.html
Incidentally, the ARMA also says not to allow anyone to spray on ANY after coating “Field Coating” on your roof.
It says that those coatings can cause damage and at the very least, none have proven to accomplish anything.
They are sold as a supposed way to not have to ever clean your roof again. They only claim that the products will keep your roof clean for 2 years. 99% of all roofs cleaned properly, will stay clean longer than that, without buying into their programs. Read the ARMA statements here:
http://www.asphaltroofing.org/sites/...tin/tb_227.pdf
So, after 24 years of roof cleaning: First with a Pressure Washing machine and then without the use of any pressure, this is what I have learned to be facts.
Chuck Bergman Roof Cleaning "AND" Pressure Washing. Charlotte and Sarasota County Florida.
In business here since 1989. Father & Son business since 1994. No Work Crews - No Trainees!
We do not run our business from a cell phone. We have old land line numbers that have been mine for over 20 years.
We are permanent residents and here to stay!
Englewood, Rotonda West, Placida, Cape Haze areas CALL: 941-698-1959
Venice, Nokomis, Osprey and South Sarasota office: 941-483-3673
Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda Office: 941-255-8600
Englewood, North Port Office: 941-474-8883