LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got Jerry on the line who’s dealing with some moss on a roof. What can we do for you?
JERRY: Well, I have these wood shakes on my roof and they’re approximately 20 years old. And I have a lot of trees around my house; gets a lot of shade. And I was wondering if there was any kind of alternative to take care of that moss besides putting copper flashing up there. Roofer said that’d probably cost you $400 in flashing alone because I have so many peaks.
TOM: Ah. OK. Well let’s kind of back up here and talk about what caused it. You hit on some of the issues there. First of all, you had a lot of trees around your house. Are they still there or have they been trimmed back?
JERRY: Oh, yeah. I’ve got real tall evergreen trees.
TOM: OK. So, because you have a very shady roof, you have conditions that are very conducive to growing moss. If you could cut back some of those trees just a little bit, thin them out, get a little more sunlight on there, that would help.
Now, your roofer suggesting the copper flashing on the ridge, he’s a smart guy because, basically, what’s happening with that …
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. It’s a good trick of the trade.
TOM: Yep, good trick of the trade – is the rain hits the copper, it releases some of the metal, the metal runs down the roof and then cleans the moss. So that’s kind of a natural mildicide.
Now, there’s a good product out there, though, that if you apply it, will do a really good job of getting the moss off and then keeping it off. It’s called Wet & Forget. Have you heard of this product?
JERRY: No, I haven’t.
TOM: It’s used by a lot of major folks like Sea World, for example. They have all of the issues with moisture and slippery sidewalks and grimy buildings from all the algae that grows. They use this product and a lot of homeowners use this product. Their website is WetAndForget.com. It’s not caustic, it’s not acidic and it doesn’t include bleach and you don’t have to pressure-wash with it. You just apply it and it does the job by itself.
JERRY: Well that sounds good.
TOM: Take a look at that at WetAndForget.com. In fact, they have some before-and-after photos of roofing projects there that are particularly impressive.
JERRY: Well, great. I’ll have to check that out.
TOM: Alright. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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