Roof Moss?!

Here are a couple interesting pictures of moss growing on a shed roof...

I was at my dad's house the past Saturday to get his yard cleaned up and put to bed for the winter. The grass needed one last cutting but before that could happen the leaves needed to be picked up, the flower pots needed to be emptied and put away, frost killed annuals needed to be pulled and the gutters needed to be cleaned on both the house and the shed.

I used my 38" lawn sweeper to pick up as many leaves as possible. Although this is a valuable tool, it fills up too quickly with leaves and it did just that time and time again. I must have emptied that over 30 times! Once I had the majority of the leaves up it was then time to use the mower and bag the remaining ones. Once again, the leaves filled the mower bag too quickly and needed to be emptied over and over and over. Anyway, I am happy to say that the majority of the leaves, at that time anyway, were picked up and the grass cut nice and low.

I then moved to cleaning the gutters. I use a hand-held Craftsman leaf blower for this task - it works GREAT! The house gutters were not too bad at all - there are no large trees close to the house so their leaves have little effect. However, the shed roof is a different story, as it sits beneath several tall maples. Needless to say it doesn't take too long for the gutters to fill and become clogged.

Well, as I climbed the ladder to get on the roof I was amazed to see the back of the roof, which is not visible from the house and day to day activity, was covered with moss! It looked like the roof was covered with a nice green carpet. This is NOT a good thing to have happening, not at all. The moss retains moisture, which does damage to the shingles, as well as the added weight. We need to understand the cause of this so we can prevent it from happening again but we also need to figure out a way to kill the moss and remove it. I used a snow shovel and was able to scrap off and remove some but most remains. I am thinking of spraying a water and bleach solution on it to kill the moss...just an idea, we'll see.

Anyway, the gutters have been cleaned and the yard put to bed - come on ole man winter!

P.S. These pictures were taken before I cleaned the roof and gutters. All the leaves, sticks and 'stuff' have been removed - it looks better. I do good work, after all why do something unless you're going to do it right, right!