We’ve had an appraisal done of the house we’re working on refinancing. The appraiser called out some “moss accumulation” on the roof and the mortgage broker thinks it would be good for us to get it off before it becomes an issue for the lender.
If I wanted to be lazy and just throw money at this, what kind of worker should I be looking for to handle this for us?
On the other hand, I have been wanting to buy a pressure washer, so maybe this is my excuse? But the roof is pretty steeply pitched, so I’m not super comfortable going up on the steeper part. (There aren’t any attachments for ropes/harnesses.) If I do want to brave it, any hints or techniques for making it safer?
Placeholder until someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about chimes in.
A handyman or general laborer with stiff brush is probably all you’re looking for. But I’d be a little worried about liability if some bozo falls off there–the roof does look pretty darn steep.
A pressure washer should also do the trick. I think I’d try to spray from the top down so as not to force water underneath the shakes (those are wood shakes, right?), but there’s still the roof pitch issue.
I’m impressed you got moss to grow in direct sunlight.
A pressure washer can do a lot more damage to a roof than moss. I’d skip that and try lots of bleach instead. I’m sure you can find some sort of adapter thingamawhatsit for a hose that lets you blast bleach all over all the things.
If you do buy a pressure washer, don’t be one of those people who spends $800 dollars on a gas powered rig because you’ve become convinced that a hugely overpowered piece of equipment is the necessary purchase you need to compensate for some vague insecurity in your life. I can confidently assure you that an electric model costing well under $200 is more than adequate for most homeowner tasks, and is a far easier tool to own and maintain.
The picture isn’t that clear, but the roof is asphalt shingles.
Yeah, this is in a suburb of Seattle so it’s not all that sunny most of the time. I think moss should probably be our state flower.
I didn’t put this in the OP, but this summer we did do an application of hardware-store moss killer and blasted as much as I could off with the regular hose nozzle, while I was standing on a ladder leaned up against the gutter. As you can see it was only somewhat effective.
It’s possible to to pop off the moss nuggets with a gloved finger poke or tool of some sort, but that’s not super scalable to the whole roof, especially when I can’t/won’t climb on it to reach all the parts. The roof on the other side is flatter, and I did climb up there and use a broom along with the water spray. That worked better but still left some minor amounts of moss.
Not really sure what to do because I’ve now done some googling and pressure washing is discouraged by some/many. But the techniques they recommend instead haven’t been super effective. Ugh.
Seems like pressure washing is going to damage the roof. You think it’s in good condition, but just mossy? If you want to be lazy and throw money at it, the right worker is a roofing contractor.
Just quickly googling “how to get moss off shingles” seems to bring up a ton of DIY options (including using diluted bleach as suggested).
Also just quickly searching on Home Depot there seem to be commercial products designed specifically for this surface. It seems like possibly for $25 you could get a chemical at the hardware store, spray it on the roof, and then rinse off with a garden hose and that may do the trick.
The roof is around 10 years old and in otherwise decent condition, as far as I can tell.
I think, given my lack of success with my previous efforts, and the real risk of death or bodily injury if I get on the steep roof, I’m just going to hire a pro and let them figure out how to handle it.
We had something very similar. Moss growing where the garage roof met the siding of the top of the first floor and then more moss on the upper roof. Despite it being what seemed to be a pretty simple job I found a roof/GC type guy to do it. I don’t mess with roofs. They just scraped it all off and then used a bleach type solution to kill/prevent future growth. It’s been over 2 years and no new moss.
They were pretty upfront that at most it was going to take 15 minutes but still had a minimum getting out here charge. So they also power washed our deck/garage doors/driveway since they’d be here. Maybe you can negotiate something similar if you need since it really is a simple job.
So apparently on the side of my house there is a small dog door that leads into the crawl space. I didn’t know it was there and I’m not even sure why it’s there, but rodents are clearly using it to get in and out. It’s pretty small about 1 ft by 1 ft. My solution is to just place a board over it to seal it off. So what kind of wood should I get for this? I’ll want something that I can paint and will be resistant to rain.
We’re in a wooded area, so we have a ton of rodents. We have a service that comes by every couple months that sets various traps down there, takes away the carcasses, etc. I’m positive there are other entry points that we’re just unaware of. It is an extremely large space. It not clear to me that sealing this is really changing much. But why make it easier for them than it has to be?
Pressure treated plywood. $35 for a 1/2" sheet, or maybe less if they sell those smaller project panel things at your local big box store. You’ll need to wait at least a month or two to let it dry out before painting.
Alternatively if you’re feeling baller, you can get a 1/2" sheet of cellular PVC for about $100. You can paint that right away.
Compromise: 1x8 8’ piece of cellular PVC trim, two pieces cut and stacked to cover the hole.
Could have had you do a site evaluation for solar too.