A family member is moving into this house, roof is about 10 years old.
They asked if I could clean the roof, it’s pretty bad but my past couple attempts on other houses have been unsuccessful to say the least and I want to make sure this is done right.
The front has all the angles, but the back is completely plain and flat so not much of a challenge except for being two stories. I’ll have to bring my 28’ most likely.
I did redo my proportioner finally so I may have a fighting chance to get a stronger mix up there. Last time I tried it was about 5% and didn’t do a darn thing.
I’ll have to check when I get there but I may be able to walk the roof if my balance is somewhat intact.
That’s one even I’d tackle. I don’t advertise roof washes and only build a quote for them when asked - which for me is like 2-3 times a year.
Unless the photo is deceiving, I would walk that with no concern. I’d set up a ladder to the roof over the garage and then another ladder to the 2nd story from on top of the garage. Keep in mind I have no employees so I can do stupid stuff like that. But if you can reach the second floor from the rear with just one ladder then that’d be the way to go. I just own a 10-ft a frame, 17-ft little giant foldable ladder and a 24-ft fiberglass extension ladder.
Be mindful/plan accordingly for the downspouts. If possible, consider routing them to the driveway and using the runoff to perhaps “pre-treat” before you surface clean that too. If gutter are left to drain on their own, it’ll be obvious in the lawn with the slope of the property. I understand that this is likely a stock photo from spring/summer, but dormant grass will likely still take a beating this time of year.
5% is hot, but no reason why it shouldn’t work. I’d likely shoot for 3-4% and see how that works first. Not having a blend manifold, I just batch mix in a tank to desired strength and 12v it from there.
Keep windows wet, try not to have too much drift, and be sure to stick a sign in the yard &/or leave a card at the neighbors’ house for a house wash.
If it’s just you Brock, you can always hook up a sprinkler to help keep lawn nice and diluted and save you from going up and down ladders constantly. Or bag downspouts.
If you want to see if those black spots under gutters will clean up well, you can always bring a shorter ladder, pump up sprayer, and a gallon of bleach or something and that will let you know if it will come up without it being a huge hassle for you.
That driveway/grass like mentioned previously might take a beating with that grade depending on how you deal with runoff.
Roof looks easy enough to walk on. Good luck and godspeed!
That is the bread & butter of roof washing. No more than 3-4% needed, heavy on the surfactant. Suds are not a bad thing, you want it to stay there when you spray it. A lighter spray 2-3x will give you a much better result (and less collateral damage) overall. You want it soaked, but never a puddle. Throw some catch bags on the downspouts to be safe, and dump them down the driveway if you want. Load it up and leave it alone, just make sure it won’t be raining for 24 hours or so. Pre-treat the downspout outlets on the garage, and then work top down (well, bottom up, high roof to lower roof).
Everything except the upper roof over the garage can easily be done from a ladder with a proper stabilizer on it, if you prefer. If solo, prewet like crazy, and the sprinkler is a good backup plan.
If you go from the ladder, use a fan pattern shooting straight up the edges and fanning inwards, so you’re not spraying a bunch off the edges. Then fill in the missed spots. Obviously don’t pre-treat anything on the lower roof if you’re putting a ladder on it
We do a lot of them (including several a year for other washers’ clients), but our guys mostly like just getting on the roof (which of course means you’re spraying more off the roof).
I’ve done a lot of townhomes very similar to that. Lots of great advice here. I would add that when I do these, I just put a ladder around back and climb on the roof from there to the peak - then shoot the front side of the roof from the peak. You can get the back roof from the ladder and the garage is easy after that.
You can walk that pretty easily. You may need a slightly longer ladder though to get up there safely, even putting it on deck. If you do put ladder on deck, tie it off with a bungee or something to a gutter support. The garage you can shoot from ground. You may need 5% on it, maybe a couple of times. then lower it some to maybe 3.5 - 4 . Do the garage first to make sure your SH and proportioner are working.
Over 50% of the runoff from the upper roof is getting concentrated to 4 very distinct areas on the garage roof & it’s going to be a chronic problem the way it is. I’ll bet you never would have heard about it if the downspouts had been piped to the lower gutter when it was built.
for a standard SH roofwash? Probably double the surfactant you’d use on a housewash, work from the gutterline to the peak, and preferrably with a lighter mist so it’s not running down.
