The Lemon Fool

Thanks for the replies regarding my garage issues. I might have a go with some form of copper.

Cheers,
Mark

Late to the party as usual.

I always thought and it was mentioned in a previous reply, is that roof and walls in this country are designed to get wet then dry. Moss retains the moisture and stops the material drying. So it penetrates and can remove the fines this in turn reduces the strength of the material and is more easily broken, eventually water will travel through. I have seen water poring out of a hole in a concrete wall due to this process.

You also have the problem of frost in water soaked materials. Often seen on the surface of facing bricks when it breaks away.

Mike4 wrote:

Howard wrote:My house roof is in good condition (cement tiles) but, in places it is a bit mossy. I live in one of those roads where the neighbours are keen on house maintenance.

Several neighbours have had contractors remove moss. This has been done mechanically by physical scraping (not powerwashing).

Should I follow suit? I've looked for advice on the internet and this is split pretty evenly between yes and no. I am not concerned by the appearance of the moss because it isn't that thick or widely spread and, in my view, just makes the house look fairly mature.

We live next to a lot of trees so I have "hedgehogs" in the gutters and so no drainage problems. Gulleys are kept clear.

Comments or advice would be most welcome.

regards

Howard

I suspect the need to remove moss is no more than 'golf club syndrome', i.e. "my roof is cleaner than yours, you slovenly householder, you".

If the moss becomes so prolific it causes a problem, do report back.

I looked up this thread because we had a fascinating development over the last two weeks.

The hedgehogs were taken out and cleaned by our local handyman some time ago. But I left the moss on the roof to its own devices.

However, a brilliant team removed the moss from the roof last week.

They did it, free of charge and uninvited.

Looking out at the garden, I noticed moss raining down on the patio. It was quite difficult to find out why because as soon as I opened the door the team flew away. It was a "clamour" of rooks. Over a few days they systematically flicked virtually all the moss off the roof on all elevations. I guess the dry weather helped and presumably they were after insects. Obviously it meant my clearing up a large pile of moss from the paths round the house but that was a pleasure given that they'd done the hard work.

So, now, if I were a golfer, I would be able to keep up with the Joneses and have a good story to tell at the bar.

regards

Howard

Won't your gutters be full of the stuff as well ?

richlist wrote:Won't your gutters be full of the stuff as well ?

See posts above. The dry moss just bounces off the hedgehogs and falls to the ground. Even in the gulleys.

Wet leaves in Autumn are a bit less helpful.

regards

Howard

We've had magpies doing this for years. Whenever anybody has checked the gutters they've been clear, so it doesn't seem to cause a problem there. Unfortunately we do have a polycarbonate conservatory roof below, so it does make quite a mess of that.

Howard wrote:However, a brilliant team removed the moss from the roof last week.

They did it, free of charge and uninvited.

Looking out at the garden, I noticed moss raining down on the patio. It was quite difficult to find out why because as soon as I opened the door the team flew away. It was a "clamour" of rooks. Over a few days they systematically flicked virtually all the moss off the roof on all elevations. I guess the dry weather helped and presumably they were after insects.

How can I hire your Rooks? Don't think I've ever seen a rook around here (SE London) but we do get plenty of Magpies, which are also corvids of course, although they've regrettably yet to exhibit that behaviour!

Back in spring I bought a 5m roll of this "Anti moss structured copper tape / self-adhesive / moss stop / roof demossing" stuff to try it out:


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254844489709

I stuck it at the top of some sections of our mansard roof that have the most moss and ... there's been no significant difference; the moss is still there. It might have made a minor difference, I should have taken "before" photos but I didn't, and it's certainly not made all the moss drop off.

I'll leave things as is over winter to see what happens then, and if there's no change then come spring I'll try scraping all the existing moss off (or use chemicals) to see if the copper prevents new moss growing, before declaring it useless or otherwise ...

I keep moss of my paths and decking with a light sprinkling of soda crystals, I don't care about the roof but was trying to think about if I wanted to do the roof with the same kit. How do I sprinkle the roof? Sometimes the soda crystals clump and I could probably lob the bigger ones one the roof. With smaller clumps a catapult might be toy for the job.

Howard wrote:It was a "clamour" of rooks.

Great collective noun!

Mind you, the collective noun for crows is IIRC, a "murder" of crows..... even darker and better!

mc2fool wrote:Back in spring I bought a 5m roll of this "Anti moss structured copper tape / self-adhesive / moss stop / roof demossing" stuff to try it out:


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254844489709

Copper tape works, but it might take five years. A long, long time ago, we were having some roofing repairs done and the workmen volunteered to run a copper wire just below the apex of the roof, on both the front and the back. It eventually had some effect, but we were waiting almost a decade!

In the meantime, our resident blackbirds have made it an annual task to rootle through the moss in search of worms. The rooks at the farm (hundreds of them!) haven't shown much interest in the game. But we have hopes that the latest people in town might take up the hobby. A pair of ravens. The rooks don't like 'em. But then, have you ever seen the beak on a raven?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:Copper tape works, but it might take five years. A long, long time ago, we were having some roofing repairs done and the workmen volunteered to run a copper wire just below the apex of the roof, on both the front and the back. It eventually had some effect, but we were waiting almost a decade!

Ummm ... well at that point I think one might question whether that's causation or ... blackbirds.