It might seem counter-intuitive but you can soft wash your roof. It's actually the safest and preferred method of professionals because it doesn't rely on High PSI power washing which can easily damage your roof tiles and cause major problems for your home.
Pressure washing is still a viable option when soft washing isn't possible, we highly recommend only professional roof cleaners take on the task, though.
So, how do you go about soft washing a roof? In this blog, we will go through the process step by step as well as show you what you need to get started with it.
Table of contents
What Do You Need To Soft Wash A Roof?
The soft washing system for a roof:
Pressure washer with at least 200 psi
A tank for holding chemicals (At least 40 Litres)
A pump & hose for spraying the chemicals (hose should be around 160 feet to be sure)
A trigger gun and nozzle for guiding the chemicals and controlling water flow
Sodium hypochlorite mixture. Make sure that this is 3% soft wash recipe at most (see instructions for ho to do this)
Everything else:
Ladders (including roof ladders)
Moss Scraper
Bucket x2
Garden sheets
Window cleaner and some cloths
Garden bin bags
How Do You Soft Wash A Roof?
To soft wash a roof, first you will need to manually scrape away the moss that's sitting on top as this will be killed, but not removed from the roof. Once your roof is moss free, apply the sodium hypochlorite mixture to your entire roof, this should only take around 30 minutes in total.
Preparation For Cleaning
The first thing to do is protect the home you are working on. You will need to disassemble sown pipes to prevent debris from blocking the gutter first, this is a pretty easy process. You could also get some filters to do this as well.
Next, protecting the homes garden is essential to prevent plants from being destroyed and to stop debris flinging all over the garden.
The best way to do this is with large sheets to cover the lower area of the garden. You may also have to protect the neighbours garden too, depending on the proximity of the gardens.
Reach systems installed
Depending on the type of building you are cleaning and your budget, you will have a few options of accessing the roof. Ladders are the most common of course, but you may want to use a scissor lift, cherry picker or even harnesses depending on what type of building you are going to clean.
If it's just an average home you can probably get away with a few ladders but it depends completely on your preference.
Moss Removal
Before you can apply the soft washing chemicals, manual moss removal will be required first. The soft washing solution will kill the moss, but it won't remove it so this needs to be done with a scraper. Have a read of our blog on 'does moss damage your roof' to understand why it's so important.
This is by far the most time consuming part of soft washing the roof. It can take up to 3 hours for an average sized home to completely remove the moss manually.
Soft Washing Chemical Applied
Now for the easy and fun part. Start from top to bottom on your roof, doing your best not to overspray off the roof. Be generous with the chemical and don't miss any part of the roof.
Have a look at this handy guide on 'how to make the perfect soft soft wash recipe.'
This part of the process only takes around 30 minutes and can be done from your ladder, or with a telescopic lance depending on the type of building being cleaned. You won't need a heavy duty pressure washer for this process since the cleaning power is not PSI power related.
Cleaning Up
Re-attach down pipes, remove sheeting and clean anything you dirtied during the cleaning process.
You ill probably need to wipe down the windows and the gutters as well. For that reason, we recommend having some window cleaner to hand as well as a bucket and spade for the gutters, followed by a low rinse of the gutters.
Conclusion
Soft washing isn't as hard as you may have thought. It's actually a lot easier than pressure washing a roof in practice because you won't need to lug around the pressure washing lance all around the roof.
The hardest part is removing that moss which is a really tedious task and from a greater height.
Once your roof has been soft washed, it can take up to 3 months to remove the algae and mould sitting on top of the roof so be patient.
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