Moss Treatmentin Covington

Moss treatment, in our own words

Moss Treatment Only: Moss Treatment applied to kill and prevent moss. Treatment only does not remove the moss.

Killing moss and removing moss are two different jobs

This is the single most important thing to understand before you book a treatment, so it is worth stating twice. A moss treatment kills what is growing and discourages what would grow next. It does not take anything off your roof.

That distinction is easy to miss, because in most of home maintenance killing something and getting rid of it happen in the same step. Moss does not work that way. It is a plant with a grip on the surface it is sitting on, and it keeps that grip after it dies. Dead moss is still moss on a roof until rain, wind and time carry it away.

So the right way to think about a treatment is maintenance rather than repair. You are not booking a change in how the roof looks today. You are booking a change in what the roof is doing over the next stretch of wet weather.

Who a treatment is actually for

Four situations where treatment on its own is the sensible call:

Your roof was recently cleaned. This is the clearest case. The moss came off, the roof is in good shape, and the only question left is how long it stays that way. A treatment applied to a clean roof is working against a few spores rather than against an established colony.

Your roof is lightly touched. A green tinge along the shaded lower courses. A thin film in the valley. A little growth in the seams on the north slope. At that stage the growth has not built up enough to lift a shingle, and killing it before it does is far less work than removing it later.

You are on a yearly rotation. If the outside of your house gets handled on a schedule, the roof treatment fits neatly into that rhythm. It is also the situation where a rotation pays off, because the treatment never has to catch up.

You want to know where you stand. If you are honestly not sure whether your roof needs cleaning or just needs treating, we will look and tell you which one it is. We would rather say a roof needs the full job than take payment for a treatment that will not accomplish what you are hoping for.

What moss is, and why treatment works on it

Moss is not a stain or a mold and it does not behave like either. It is a non-vascular plant, which means it has no root system pulling water up from below and no internal plumbing moving water around inside it. Every bit of moisture it takes in comes through its surface, directly from the air and from whatever it is sitting on.

That is what makes a South Sound roof such good habitat. A plant that drinks through its skin only needs the air to stay damp, and it needs almost nothing from the surface it grows on beyond somewhere to hold. A shaded, north facing slope with a little grit in the shingle seams supplies both for most of the year.

It is also why treatment is effective. A plant that absorbs everything through its surface absorbs a surface treatment too. There is no protected root system underground to survive the application and push new growth back up.

What it does not do is loosen the grip. The dead growth has to weather off, and on a thick mat that takes a long time.

What you should expect to see

Over the weeks after a treatment, thin growth browns and gradually goes. Rain lifts the loosened remainder, wind takes it off the slope and a lot of it ends up in the gutter, which is worth knowing when you plan the next gutter cleaning.

What you should not expect is a roof that looks transformed the same afternoon. If that is what you want, the job you want is roof cleaning and moss removal, where the moss is brushed off by hand, the gutter cleaning is included and a treatment goes on afterward.

A common misread is worth heading off too. Moss that looks dead and dry in a stretch of summer weather is very often not dead at all, just dormant, waiting for the rain to come back. We explain the pattern in roof moss is not dead in August, it is just waiting for rain. Dormant moss will green up again. Treated moss will not.

What a treatment does not include

Being clear about the edges of this service saves everyone time:

• Nothing is brushed, scraped or physically taken off the roof.
• The gutters are not cleaned. That is gutter cleaning, and it is included with a full roof cleaning.
• The roof is not washed. Built up dirt and grime is what a soft wash is for, and a soft wash does not remove moss either.
• Moss on a driveway, a patio or a walkway is a different surface and a different method. That is handled under driveway and patio cleaning.

Moss treatment across the South Sound

We treat roofs for homes in Covington and across South King County, Pierce County and Thurston County, including Kent, Renton, Maple Valley, Auburn, Federal Way, Puyallup, Sammamish, Issaquah and Olympia. The full list is on our service areas page. We are residential only.

If you want the roof treatment to sit inside a wider plan for the outside of the house, our season by season rhythm for South Sound homes shows what tends to go with what.

Book a moss treatment online or contact us and describe what you can see on the shaded side of your roof. If it sounds like the roof needs removal rather than treatment, we will say so.