Mossy Roof

August 1, 2004 3:43 PM

I was up on my roof earlier today and saw that it's covered with lichen, and there's moss growing underneath and lifting up the asphalt shingles. I there any kind of moss-or-fungicide I can spray or paint onto this stuff to get rid of it? (A trip to Loews turned up nothing.)
posted by Faze to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Some suggestions here. If the moss is pushing up the shingles, though, you may also want someone to check for damage.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:13 PM on August 1, 2004

More suggestions here.

If the product you use has bleach in it, be aware of the runoff... I killed my next door neighbor's veggie garden. Doh!
posted by spilon at 8:45 PM on August 1, 2004

Moss hates Lime.
posted by Fupped Duck at 9:31 PM on August 1, 2004

I had this on the roof of my garage and I just sprayed the RoundUp on it that I had for killing weeds - and it worked (or, at least, it turned brown, scraped away and I haven't seen any since...) YMMV, of course, but if you've got it sitting around, it's worth a try.
posted by JollyWanker at 8:29 AM on August 2, 2004

I went to Costco, bought a box of Tide powered detergent, sprinkled on my roof, and presto...brown dying moss.
posted by grefo at 9:43 AM on August 2, 2004

Me personally....my wife and I had a new roof put on. No, not the cheapest option, but (a) the roof was over 25 years old and thus at the end of its life anyway; (b) we were concerned that there may have been unknown leaks; and (c) our homeowners insurance basically said "fix it or we'll drop your coverage."

Fortunately for us, there was no leakage and the roofers only had to replace about 40 linear feet worth of sheathing (our house was built with 1x12 for the sheathing, not plywood). So, from my experience, I would say that if you suspect the roof is old, spend the cash now to get some peace of mind.

As an aside, if you do decide to have a new roof put on, be sure that the quote specifies shingles that have anti-algicide properties. I believe they either spray the shingles with copper sulfate or it's impregnated in it during the manufacturing process. This is what we specified when we got our quotes since we do not have very good sun exposure on our property. The cost difference is negligible.
posted by PeteyStock at 10:41 AM on August 2, 2004