Hi, my name's Sid. I run an exterior-cleaning
business in the UK. And today, I'm going to
be taking you through cleaning a very mossy roof. So, this roof hasn't been
cleaned for the 28 years that the homeowners
have lived here. Here, I'm beginning
to scrape the roof. So, I'm trying to remove
as much moss as possible. This is what I'll be doing
for the bulk of the day, and this is the hardest
part of the job. I have the tool that I use. It's basically a
flat metal blade angled to one side, which means I can get
the edge of the tile, which usually carries
a lot of the moss, and scrape the bulk surface of the tile at
the same time. I use sort of a
side-to-side motion, and it is very
taxing on the body. So it takes a long
time to build up the endurance and
strength to do it. So, on this roof, you'll see a lot of brown and green. This is the moss. You'll also see a
lot of white spots people think is
bird droppings, but this is white lichen. Moss is terrible for
roofing and roof materials, especially in the UK, as we get a lot of damp
weather over here. So it just tends to
grow and fester more, and it'll grow in between
the cracks of the tiles. Now, when you
have hot weather turn into cold weather, the moss will
freeze and expand and then end up cracking
the roof tiles, which can create
holes, leaks, and things like
that in the roof. So, this part of the job, where I'm on the scaffolding,
was the hardest. So I use a 40-feet
extendable pole with the scraper
attached on the end, and I was almost
at max extension. So, the scraper itself
is quite heavy, and the pole itself
is quite heavy. So having that out at a
near horizontal level for a couple of hours
is very difficult. And as soon as
this was done, I was relieved and happy to move on to the next part. So, what I'm cleaning here is a four-bedroomed house. It's got big, flat
concrete tiles. So these are some
of the best tiles to come across to clean. The surface area of them, and because they're
completely flat, it's very easy to
get the moss off. You do not get roofs
better than this. So, it's rare that you'll
actually get away with using a broom to
clean a roof, as usually the moss is
very, very stuck on, and it's typically just
used for cleaning up. However, on this job, the moss was
coming off easy, so in certain sections, it can just be easier just to try and
sweep off a majority and then sort of fine-tune
it with a scraper. So, the typical
cleaning chemicals that I use in my
roof-cleaning work is a chemical
called a biocide. What this essentially
will do is destroy any of the organic
growth left on the roof, and it has a residual
cleaning effect once I'm gone as well. So there's no
rinsing it off. You leave it on the
roof to fully dry and soak into the tiles. This will get anything that we can't get
to by scraping, so anything that's
left in the gaps. Any sort of really
stubborn stains and marks that are left on the tiles
also will slowly degrade. So, the brush that
I'm using here is a basic water-fed pole that most window
cleaners would use. That's all you need. It's got four jets in it, which will fire out
the chemical mix with the water
onto the roof. And the brush is just used to agitate that chemical, which will help it foam
up, as you can see. This helps it stick
to the roof more, as it's a natural
surfactant. So, what I'm doing here is I'm applying the biocide
solution to the roof. Now, this is diluted
at 25:1 with water. So for every 1
liter of biocide, I use 25 liters of
water to dilute it, ensuring I'm covering every square inch
of this roof, making sure it's
completely soaked in. A lot of mistakes
people make is not putting enough on, and they're left with
a very patchy roof. So it's really important
to get complete coverage and make sure all of
the tiny little gaps are completely soaked. So if you don't fill
all of the gaps on the roof with
the chemical, then the moss will
regrow with a vengeance. The important part
is making sure anything organic
on this roof is completely absorbing
this chemical. So once the biocide completely
soaks and dries in, you would never even
know it was on there. And your results will start
to come after a few weeks. The main thing is
trusting in the chemical, because it definitely
will do its job. So, it's important to
have your roof cleaned because the buildup of moss will over time damage
the tiles on the roof, which can lead to
cracks, damp, leak. All sorts of issues
in your home that you really don't
want happening. And if the problem is not
treated early enough, then it can lead
to very expensive roof repairs in the future. As far as time scale on how often should my
roof be cleaned, it is pretty much
a one-time deal for the majority
of the process, as long as it's being
kept on top of. And in future,
it would just be a light chemical treatment just to keep
anything at bay. So the first step
is getting it done, and then it's a case
of maintaining it.
