Has anyone had to clean wood roof shakes. Was wondering the best cleaning process.
I clean mostly cedar here on Cape Cod in eastern Massachusetts.
You’ll hear lots of opinions on what is best, mostly by cleaners who have only ever really cleaned one way. I can think of five or six ways to clean a cedar roof which can turn out excellent, but in my experience, there is no “best” but rather just the “best for the situation.”
Details which matter:
What type of cedar? Red? White? Yellow?
Are there gutters?
What TYPE of gutters? (copper, painted aluminum, galvanized, wood…)
What type of siding? (stucco, painted, bare cedar, brick/stone, etc)
What is the condition of the shakes? Have they been stained, sealed, or treated in any way?
Is the cedar shake roof installed on cedar breather over plywood, or are the shakes nailed to old-school lathe strips?
What is growing on the shakes? (algae, lichen, or a carpet of moss?)
What is the height and pitch of the roof? Are there trees overhead?
Do the homeowners just want to take steps to maintain the roof, or do they need it A+ clean NOW because its going up for sale and pics are being taken on Friday?
etc. etc.
I tell everyone to do what I did: find somebody in your area to take you under their wing and learn from them until you have the confidence to go out and learn more on your own. At $2k+ per square, cedar roofing is an expensive canvas to learn on…
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Nice Nate…thanks for the input!
