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devonwoody

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Any roofer around, I have a large accumulation of moss on a NNW facing roof and my concrete type tiles (Marley) appear damp a lot of the time. My neighbour opposite with a similar facing roof does not seem to be affected.
Do concrete type tiles deterioriate ?
Or can you suggest reason.
Is there a method to get rid of moss?

Bungalow fortunately.


BTW what is the underside of a soffit named, the horizontal slab? That is damp as well. (asbestos type)
 
I've read that if you string a bare copper wire across the top of your roof it eventually kills off the moss.
Not something I've tried though - my roof is pretty high up!

Rod
 
Bear in mind if you kill it you will then need to clean the gutters regularly

I heard about the copper wire thing too but don't know if it works
 
devonwoody":3oaw33lj said:
..BTW what is the underside of a soffit named, the horizontal slab? That is damp as well. (asbestos type)
I thought the underside (horizontal board) was the soffit? The vertical board that attaches to the lower end of the roof trusses and carries the guttering is the fascia, and the boards at the gable ends are barge-boards. No?

Not a roofer, so happy to be corrected...
 
petermillard":3kr943t3 said:
I thought the underside (horizontal board) was the soffit? The vertical board that attaches to the lower end of the roof trusses and carries the guttering is the fascia, and the boards at the gable ends are barge-boards. No?

Not a roofer, so happy to be corrected...

I'm also not a roofer but I have made a couple or three. That's my understanding too.

On the other note, someone was/is removing the moss on the bungalow next door, which I think has concrete tiles. He's using a hoe. A few months back another house had some company come round to do the same and they appeared to be using some kind of pressure washer. This were angled from the top down so as not to squirt up under the tiles.
 
Thanks all.

I have got an inside lintel over bathroom window that is developing mould so I have got to investigate all angles. The window is open 95% of the time.
 
I'm not a Roofer however.....
The North facing direction of a roof will normally be subject to more moss growth because it's receives the least amount of sunlight and so stays damp a lot of the time, particularly in the seasons of high humidity.
Copper ridges are said to reduce moss and lichen growth because rainfall hits the copper and washes down the roof slates which has a negative effect on moss growth.
That's the theory anyway.
I always advise my customers never to have their roofs pressure washed, I've seen the after effects on several occasions, and it's never good.
Manually scraping the moss off is the sensible way of doing it in my opinion, and results will be instant.
Moss Go and various other moss removing chemicals can and do work but can take time before results are shown.
The other alternative is to just live with it and clear the gutters out on a regular basis, (sometimes up to several times per year) when the moss naturally drops down from the roof due to wind and rainfall etc.
Unless there is a damp problem I advise the above to customers seeking the most economical solution and to those who don't require an instant remedy to the problem.
 
Not a problem you should advertise, we had a rash of fly by night firms claiming that the moss on the roof would destroy the tiles and that the answer was to pay them slabs of cash to power wash and paint with a "special paint". Regetably quite a few elderly people were taken in and paid substantial sums.
 
Some of my neighbour's have had their roofs pressure washed and the moss has come back after a few years.

Rod
 
I jetwashed our roof (Marley concrete tiles, too) when we moved here 20 years ago. It blocked all the downpipes to a depth of about four feet, and, as they enter the gullies under about a foot of concrete, this was an "interesting" problem (to be fair, a few were well blocked already). So if you do have the roof jetwashed, make sure the contractor (temporarily) blocks the tops of the downpipes and cleans out the gutters before removing the bungs!

Did it work or help? Not much. The lichen came back very fast about 1-2 years But it's pretty and thin, so that didn't matter. The moss has followed again, and now it's probably back where it was. Clean moss-free gutters do allow heavy downpours to run off quickly, whereas there's a risk in the first winter storms that the looser moss will clog the downpipes again, but otherwise I'm not sure there's much point.

The moss does damage the Marley tiles over time. Mainly it lifts the sharp sand coating, and that gets removed from the roof when the moss goes (and that too clogs downpipes). But then a jetwash, or even hard frosts, will do the same.

Copper salts are poisononus to plants, so the copper wire thing ought to work - the carbonic acid in the rain will cause weak copper salt deposition on the roof. How much copper wire you would need I couldn't guess.

The other issue, apart from bright green smears on the roof, is increasing the propensity to lightning strikes. This is probably trivial on a bungalow, but here, in a tall house on a hill, with next door having been recently struck, it's a consideration.

You do get corona discharge from thin wire, which is the most popular theory as to how lightning conductors work, so it might help, but only as long as it's really well earthed by a thick wire on the outside of the building (outside is important).

Personally, I think I"d leave well alone, but I would check the gutters and downpipes about now each year.

E.
 
Thanks again to all, and their constructive views.

What as started me down this path is that I have got damp coming through an internal wall above the bathroom window, (open 95%) the sofit outside feels damp and goes into the inside wall I think. Moss in abundance and gutter joints and end gutter stop also in vicinity, pvc facing behind gutters so plenty of place to look.
 

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