I got a call to bid a cleaning on a light gray roof today. Was told he had bad staining from chimney, that the smoke rolls right down his roof and soots it up every year. I went and looked at it, and holy smokes!!! I couldnt even see the joints between the tabs of the shingles it was so dark. Brown around edges and black through. Ive done a lot of roofs and havent yet seen anything quite like this.
My first thought is to try baking soap and detergent and a little scrubbing. Then when I can actually start to see some shingle ,,, rinse rinse rinse. than try some oxalic. What do you think? Other than pressure, i dont know.
The "soot stain " has been my demon for many years now, it is all over the place up here. You really only see it on newer chimney's the ones that are boxed in. Old chimneys do get them when the owner has had a stainless steel insert put in. There has been alot of finger pointing up here blamimg the dye in the fuel to the stainless steel cap to the oil burners them selves.I had an extension put on my home about ten yrs ago, A real brick chimey and fire place was also installed and I have no problems. I have tryed almost every product out there to clean it....I even got stuff from a " fire restoration " company that promised it would take it off....no good. In desperation I even tried soda { coke } but no luck. This is a big thing to look for on every roof cleaning job, you got to spot this problem rt away or when the roof comes clean it will be there and you will have your finger up your.... well you know. Good luck with it but I would not try any scrubbing or pressure......the thing they are considering around here is painting it......good luck!
I gave a customer a sample of some Super Clean and he used it on his out door grill and thought it was the greatest thing since toilet paper. It might work.
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Elephant Roof and Exterior Cleaning Raleigh North Carolina David Hoover 919-207-0666 Benson NC. Roof Cleaning Raleigh NC
Where do you get superclean? Another thing i thought may work is simple green or purple power?? Im gonna do some research tonite and see what all is contained in cresote. Maybe it give a better idea on how to go about removing it.... i dont know why my first post says baking soap.. i typed in baking soap. Damn smart phones..lol
I thought i was losin it.lol Did a little research last night. Anyone ever here of a product called speedywhite. Its a little pricey but if it works i wont complain at 20 a gal.
I read a little on their website, you can not apply when the object to be cleaned is hot.....so the roof would be done early morning. Also if you don't rinse well it can cause staining.....so do a test spot first. They mention removal from everything but I didn't see asphalt shingles. If it works money is no object!
I called the guy back and let him know the situation. Im awaiting a return call to get the go ahead to give it whirl. I told him with that kind of damage there is no guarantee it will look new and match the rest of shingles, but I should be able to drastically lighten them and make it less noticeable, I also gave him the option to replace that square of shingles. We'll see what happens.