Professional Roof Cleaning in Rossendale

A valley that never quite dries out

Rossendale is one of the wettest places we work. Well over a metre of rain a year, and the valley sides do the rest. A roof in Waterfoot, Stacksteads or the shaded side of Haslingden can sit without direct sun for months at a stretch between October and March.

That combination, constant damp and no drying sun, is the perfect moss factory. It is why roofs here look ten years older than the same roof laid the same week in Preston or Manchester.

Being local, we know the valley well enough to guess what we are going to find before we get the ladders off the van. A north-facing pitch in Whitworth or Bacup is a different conversation to a south-facing one on the top road.

Stone terraces, slate roofs and what that means

A lot of Rossendale housing is Victorian stone terrace with natural slate. Slate lasts, but the fixings and the timber under it do not last forever, and a slate roof that has been left under a heavy moss load for twenty years often has more going on than the moss.

We survey before we quote for exactly that reason. If there are slipped or cracked slates we will say so, and we would rather flag it than clean around it and have you find out in the next storm.

The newer estates around Rawtenstall and Helmshore are mostly concrete interlocking tile, which is a different job again. Concrete is more vulnerable to losing its surface, so the pressure stays low and the biocide does the work.

Why scraping on its own is money wasted

Plenty of people have had somebody up with a scraper for a couple of hundred pounds, and the roof looked fine for a year. Then it came back worse.

That is because removing the moss you can see does nothing about the spores and root left in the surface of the tile or slate. In a valley this damp, an untreated roof regrows in two seasons, sometimes one.

The treatment is the part that buys you the years. We remove the growth by hand and with steam, then apply a DDAC biocide across the whole roof, including the parts that look clean. It carries a two year no-moss guarantee.

The soft wash method, step by step

First the roof is inspected and anything loose or damaged is noted and photographed. Then the bulk of the moss comes off by hand and with steam, working from a roof ladder with the operative harnessed. Nobody walks across the tiles.

Next the biocide goes on across the full roof at low pressure and is left to work. It carries on killing growth for months. Finally the gutters are cleared of everything that has come down, the downpipes are checked to run, and the ground, paths and windows are washed off.

No high-pressure lance goes near the roof at any point. On slate it cracks and lifts. On concrete it takes the surface off and makes the next moss growth worse.

Exposed sites: Cribden, Scout Moor and the tops

If your house sits up off the valley floor, out towards Scout Moor, Cribden or the edge of the moor above Haslingden, you get a harder time of it than the houses down in the bottom. More wind, more spores blowing in off open ground, more driven rain, and more debris in the gutters.

Properties up there typically want the roof looking at every three to four years rather than five, and the gutters at least annually. It is worth being honest about that rather than treating every house in the valley the same.

What we do about the mess and the gutters

A heavily mossed roof produces a surprising amount of material. All of it is cleared. Gutter cleaning in Rossendale is part of every roof job, not an add-on, and the downpipes are run through to make sure they are clear at the bottom as well as the top.

Drives, flags and paths get washed down. If the driveway needs proper attention while we are there, see driveway cleaning in Rossendale.

How often a valley roof needs doing

Three to five years for most properties, at the shorter end if you are exposed, north-facing or under trees. Treated roofs go longer than untreated ones, which is the whole point of the biocide.

The thing to watch for is moss starting to show along the lap lines and at the bottom courses. Catch it there and it is a straightforward clean. Leave it until the roof is carpeted and you are paying for a much bigger job and possibly some tile replacement.

Getting a price

Send the address and two or three photos of the roof taken from the ground and we will come back with a fixed price, usually the same day. If it needs a proper look we will come out and survey it, at no charge and with no pressure.

Everything is fixed price and written down before we start. See roof cleaning for the full method or our reviews for what people in the valley say about the work.