Roof washing with power washer

can it be done? obviously down the road i will be looking at getting a soft wash setup… but for now i have a power washer, and not to many roof jobs - first one coming up… so can you get effective “softwashing” while downstreaming through a power washer? mulitple applications? or will it simply not put out a solution that is strong enough?
thanks

No, you can’t safely clean a roof with low pressure using a pressure washer.

On the bright side, your first roof should pay for the tools you need to clean roofs.

One of the best investments you can make.

I don’t know much about the subjet, but i do know you need a dedicated system. Check out powerwash.com. They will be the guy’s Ill be calling when I add it. I don’t offer it yet buuutttttt.

yea im going to build my own setup it looks like… 50 gallon drum + pump and about 200 feet of tubing and a wand… already have hose, wand and drum… so looks like total price for this build will be about 200.00 for a deent pump… first job is def gonna pay for it…

Get a pump that’s setup for the sh. Tell them that’s what you are going to be running through it. I would also recommend an accumulator. They are around $50.00 and are well worth the investment.

Pressure washing is one of the most reasonable and simplest ways to increase your home’s value and a good method to prevent time, cost and problem of future repairs.

Pressure washing is time saving and convenient, and you can securely power wash your house by knowing a few basic steps.


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Yes you can use a pressure washer on a roof if you have the right set up and the proper tip / PSI -. The first step is to rinse the roof with your chemical and you can follow that with a light pressure wash. ( a wide fan tip is needed and more gallons for minute ) When you spray with the wand you need to be able to put your hand in front of the tip showing that it wont cut your hand. Always wash down the roof and never never wash if the roof is to old. This method has been proven to work by the guy who trained me for over 25 years in the roofing business. Everyone has there opinion about roof cleaning methods and I respect that but there is no need to put down one method. My trainer has installed roofs and cleaned them for 25 years like I said and has inspected all of them. * If done properly it is safe and very effective way of removing all moss, algae, lichen and dirt from the shingle.

Absolutely correct. We have a dedicated roof pump setup we use alot but if the roof is not to bad we us an x-jet setup and spray the 15%SH we get almost straight on with a surfacant. We leave that soap mixture up there for a short while and then powerwash the house then come back to rinse off roof and house. We use only the black soap tips to rinse roof clean. Can also knock off the lichen with that tip as well. Where also using at least 8.5gpm machines to rinse roof clean so that helps as well. Moss and Lichen are never left on the roof when we leave. If it rained every other day here like Florida then we would probably do it differently but since it doesn’t we always rinse the roof after application.

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We use the green tip with a bigger orphase whole but are still putting out 12-1500 psi. This will not harm the roof if done correctly . Training is required.

We use to use the white 40 degree tips and hold it further away from the shingles. That was quite a few years back. Then when I put together larger machines we started to use the black soap tips. X-jetting it’s been around 12 yrs now using them. The roof pump I bought around 4-5 yrs ago when roof cleaning started to get more popular here. That machine is excellent but my guys still prefer to use the x-jet and black tips on the roofs when they can. It’s really a choice thing with them. Still if the roof is pretty bad they break out the roof pump.

Thanks for the input… We ended up buying a chemical pump last year shortly after I posted this. Our setup is pretty simple - 55 gallon drum, pump and hose reel, and garden hose to sprayer… Big believer in the KISS method…

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I ended up getting the dual pump from Powerwashstore. Good stuff.

That’s a heck of a price on those pumps Ralph.

Yeah I was researching pumps and spotted that on ebay, but decided to get a kit from pressuretek. I have my eye on that pump. It has been available for months so I assume they are selling them like crazy.

I picked one up. Can’t pass that up. Let you know how it turns out.

Make sure the internals will hold up to SH.

Viton valves and santoprene with stainless steel. Same as the ones sold by pressuretek and power wash .com. Seems to good to be true. We shall see.