Roof Cleaning in Mount Clemens

Roofs here fall into two groups. The Bath City era houses and the early-1900s through 1920s homes that filled the original grid carry slate and tin details: valleys, ridge caps, dormer cheeks, porch roofs and bay-window hoods, often alongside asphalt on the main planes. Out toward the Clinton Township line, the postwar homes are asphalt from ridge to eave. The chemistry is the same on both. What changes is how close anything is allowed to get to the surface, and on slate and tin the answer is that nothing does.

Shade and damp set the pace. Lake St. Clair sits east past Harrison Township at the end of Crocker Blvd, and the wind off it pushes moisture inland; the river bends through the middle of the city and holds more of it on the bank blocks; and the big street trees on the older residential streets keep morning sun off a north slope until late. Algae takes hold there first, then runs downslope in the dark stripes owners notice from the sidewalk. In a valley, or on a porch roof shaded all day near Shadyside Park, the same damp turns into moss, which lifts the shingle edge and holds water against the deck.

So the roof is treated, not washed. A solution matched to the growth goes on at low pressure, it dwells, and it kills the algae and moss at the root. Rain carries the dead layer off over the weeks that follow, and the slope keeps lightening for a month or more after we leave. Nothing is scrubbed and no pressure is put to a shingle. Roof treatment starts at $450 and holds three to five years here, longer on a face that gets afternoon sun. The written quote lands within 24 hours, and booking the treatment with a gutter clearing puts both on one trip.

Why a Pressure-Washed Roof Fails Early

Pressure on a roof shortens it. A wand strips granules off asphalt shingles, and those granules are what shade the mat underneath from sun. Once they are down in the trough, the shingle dries out and curls within a few seasons. The roof looks clean the day it is done and looks old three years later. Then there is the walking. A steep pitch with slate on the dormers and the porch is not a surface to stand on, and what breaks under a boot rarely breaks where you can see it from the sidewalk.

Timing It Right

April into November covers it, on a day above 45 degrees that is not baking. Overcast is ideal, because the solution has to stay wet long enough to work. Spring is the heaviest booking window, after a damp winter has darkened the north slope, and October is the other, usually paired with the gutter visit. Once treated, a roof runs three to five years before the stripes come back.