Hey guys, this forum is destined to be closed once certification begins. It is a great forum for pictures, and will be good for the state by state certified roof cleaner listings. But it is a difficult forum to hang out and post on. It is very confusing. So, I have created a pretty cool NEW cleaning forum for all of us to hang OUT on Just click on where it says cleaning forum, register, and start posting. It has a really cool chat room too.
Hey guys, this forum is destined to be closed once certification begins. It is a great forum for pictures, and will be good for the state by state certified�roof cleaner listings. But it is a difficult forum to hang out� and� post on. It is very confusing. So, I have created a pretty cool� NEW cleaning forum for all of us to� hang OUT on Just click on where it says cleaning forum, register, and start posting. It has a really cool chat room too.
Hey Roof Cleaning Brothers,
David here, Assistant Administrator of the RCIA,
I built a NEW roof cleaners association called the A-R-C-A short for the
The American Roof Cleaners Association
 This is a NEW Roof Cleaners Association Forum Built To Support and Protect You, your Roof Cleaning Secrets and your Business!
The above and below mentioned forum is built and ready for all to view.
The website that will accompany it is almost completed as well. More about that later (2-3 weeks more or less)
IMPORTANT:This is not a replacement of this RCIAÂ board but an extension of it.
This new American Roof Cleaners Association board I, painstakingly took many hours to create, was built from listening to ALL of the members of the RCIA talking to me and PM ing me and discussing all the things they wish the RCIA was and had but doesn't o,instead of griping or complaining anymore of what could be improved here and what many CERTIFIED paid members wanted to have but it wasn't offered on the RCIA so I did what many asked me to do and I built it for all of you that requested it.
The A-R-C-A has features that are not on the RCIA and is for the development of an association for and by Roof Cleaners.
This was created to build a Roof Cleaners Association of CERTIFIED Roof Cleaning Contractors nationwide to ADD credibility to our Roof Cleaning Institute Of America CERTIFICATION standards.
Many of our guidelines and forum rules, I burnt many hours of sleepless nights to give respect and credibility to this forum many of which I personally wrote to help our membership and to protect our members.
In my reasoning, the RCIA should be the KNOWLEDGE Base and the ARCA should be the membership platform that builds our credibility and adds and additional marketing resource to get the word out about safe roof cleaning to the public and will be the nationwide resource for building a core TRUE roof CLEANING membership that is like a brotherhood of joined contractors that will help each other around the country to keep areas from over saturation and add credibility and INDUSTRY STANDARDS to its local cleaning contractors in every state in the USA.
It is up to you, members, BROTHERS, if you think I have done a good thing here with the addition of the A-R-C-A
I did this for you, for me, for all of us and I hope you enjoy and approve. Lets light this candle and take our roof cleaning businesses to the NEXT level and create a CERTIFIED MEMBER Roof Cleaner Association that can represent us now and in the future.
Come aboard if you choose to, all CERTIFIED Members of the RCIA will be Grandfathered in as long as you are CERTIFIED and have met the posting and licensing and insurance requirements of a bonafide business.
All new or recent roof cleaners that have come on board the RCIA have until November 15, 2009 to be RCIA CERTIFIED so that you will avoid any association membership costs associated with joining after 09-15-09.
Thanks for your attention and help,
All the Best in your businesses, now and in the coming year! :)
Respecfully,
David Westerman Roof Cleaning Institute Of America- Assistant Admin. Roof Clean USA -Operations Manager Founder-Administrator- American Roof Cleaners Association http://americanroofcleanersassociation.activeboard.com
-- Edited by Roof Clean USA Georgia 229-227-0000 on Saturday 19th of September 2009 12:36:10 AM
Come on over guys the water's fine. Even those that are still learning come on over and help build a new organization. In the locked areas of the forum the experienced member will be more willing to answer questions where public eyes are not able to pry. Why give your competitor your knowledge for free. Nothing in life is free except here, I think most of the certified members will stop answering specific questions or get as far into the details as they have previously.
Don't leave RCIA and jump over you are going to want to be a member of both.
Here are MY thoughts on all of this, FWIW. The Cat is already out of the bag. One can learn to clean roofs on zillions of free forums anyway. Both TGS, PWI, and PT State, just to name a few, have roof cleaning sections of their forums. I have ZILLIONS of roof cleaning instructional posts floating around the Internet, from over 12 years of posting.
IMHO, while it was a well Intended thing to close this Forum, it has GREATLY hurt us! How ? We USED to be first page on Google !!! Now, since Google can no longer crawl MOST of the RCIA Forum, we are way back on page 6 !!! What does this mean ? It mean potential customers can not FIND an RCIA Certified Roof Cleaner, since they can't find the RCIA Forum !!
Nor can they find our roof cleaning picture posts as easily either, since our Google  ranking SUCKS lately, all due to closing the Forum!
We have not charged anyone for maintaining Certification, but I guess we could, if that is what we feel is best for all ?
Dave and others have done a LOT of work here, in my abscence, and when I was still around. They have not been compensated for their work. All donations for this Forum have been placed in a Pay Pal account belonging to me. To be used to pay for the Forum. I do more gross sales some days then the total donations to this Forum. At least I believe that to be true, but I have not checked the Pay Pal account in months!
I will support my friend David in any venture he wants to do. And I will remain FRIENDS with anyone wanting to assist him in his dream!
Sometimes, we all must agree to disagree, w/o being disagreeable ?
I want  to open the RCIA Forum back up to search engines.
We can talk about raising the bar for RCIA Certification, and about paying for maintaining certification, or not ?
Actually, nothing is set in stone, YET.
Chime in guys, let us know YOUR thought ?
We are ALL friends here, and will remain so, regardless of the final outcome!
I do think that paying for a membership in a professional orginization of tecnicians gives more credibility and inhibits "fly-by-nighters" from diluting that credibility.