I don’t usually do roofs. But I have a good repeat customer who has asked for me to clean his mother-in-law’s roof. He says it’s vinyl. It looks like it to me.
Anyway, open to suggestions for approaching this safely, and maybe a realistic time estimate so I can give him a quote. Here it is:
on a roof like that I would say low pressure, manual scrub with light detergent. you can do what they call “slinging” for fall protection. let me put together a diagram and you will see what I’m describing. your main issue is going to be not slipping off the roof.
Looking at starting roof cleaning in a few months (still putting things together). What do you utilize as the counterweight?
Id go 2% and rinse
Personally? Anything and everything. A car. A tree. Exposed rafters. But I’m a solo op and not too concerned with OSHA, just trying to stay alive to wash another day 
lol…so am I. I’m trying to avoid walking the roof, but I know that there will be times where that is not going to be the case.
Initial thoughts:
Is that a safe material to walk on? Vinyl cracks… I would be worried to walk on that. But I have never seen that before either, may be more to it than my assumption.
Do you have a 12v or pump able to just shoot from the gutter line? My initial thoughts on roof cleaning were that I was going to be walk every roof (if able). I actually started phasing out that mindset and shooting from the gutter line. I feel like I am able to control the process better and it’s a TON less risk and liability. Also, no customer can ever blame me for a “leak” in the future. Food for thought… the right equipment will be necessary for that.
I, personally, would approach that like Washing a house and wouldn’t over think it. I would downstream or X-Jet depending on severity and porous of material. I wouldn’t treat it like a “roof”.
Thanks for the feedback so far, guys. I was thinking along the same lines as a many of you.
What I think I’ll do is walk the roof, tieing off to my car and the deck as anchors. I’ll x-jet the roof @ 1.5-2% with low pressure and some roof snot, agitate with a push broom, and rinse off.
I’ll try to avoid a lot of run-off or overspray, as I just cleaned the windows and don’t feel like recleaning all of them.
We’re in snow country, so I’m not too scared of cracking the vinyl. I think I’ll know after a step or two whether I’m on safe footing, lol.
I’m guessing 1.5 hours for this roof if all goes well. Maybe $350? It’s a really good customer.
I could be wrong but I think you will find that it will rinse clean with just a HW mix. I did a house the other day that had a roof that looked very similar to this on an addition. I was washing the siding above and my HW mix cleaned the roof perfectly. I would test it first. You might be able to shoot that from the gutter line and never step foot on the roof. That would be good anyway, I bet that sucker gets slick with soap on it.
Joe
I don’t see why you would need to get on the roof? Shoot it from the ground, but how are you going to control the runoff?
Old rescue adage: “Try before you pry” In other words, see if a door is unlocked before you force your way into it…Same principal applies here: Try the easy route first (housewash mix) and then go for other options IF you need to.
Also, runoff shouldn’t be much of a concern…just rinse well like you do any other time you’re using a housewash mix.
Did you complete this? Results?
