LESLIE: Alright, now we’ve got Bill in Arkansas who’s dealing with a moldy roof. Tell us about it.
BILL: I live in Arkansas, North Arkansas, and my shingles – asphalted shingles – keep accumulating a mildew. Fungus growth is what it’s referred to sometimes …
TOM: Yep.
BILL: … and I wonder if you have a good solution or a good remedy …
TOM: Well, first of all, is your roof covered by trees; is it fairly shady?
BILL: No, it’s – well, since we had our ice storm and lost a lot of limbs, it’s exposed totally now.
TOM: OK, well that actually will help because the more sunlight you get here, the less fungus you’re going to have on this roof. But what you need to do is you need to wash the roof down and you need to use a siding wash like Jomax, which you can find at a home center, which is a cleaner that’s mixed with bleach and it’ll kill the moss or the fungus that’s there. Let it sit for a while and then you wash it off.
Now, once it’s washed off, what I want you to do is to add some copper strips to the ridge and you can do this with a copper ridge vent or simply using copper flashing; wrap it right across the ridge of the roof. Because as it rains, the rain will strike that copper and release some of the metal and it acts as a mildicide as well and washes the roof as it comes down.
So, that’s the way you clean it and slow it from coming back and the fact that you lost a lot of branches is going to keep more sunlight on that and make it a little bit more difficult for that roof moss to grab hold.
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