Lichen removal

Cat Powerwash

New Member
I have a lot of houses that i turn down because of lichen stains in my area (NJ) How do you guys remove this without removing the granuals from the roof? I have tried heavy batches of SH but doesnt seem to work. What am I doing wrong? Black streaks are not a problem. we have a big problem in my area with this. Is there any othr chemical out there that will kill this mold without disturbing the roof granuals?
 

jetstream1

New Member
Mixture for Apple Sauce Roof Cleaning Mixture is as follows.
For 100 gallons TOTAL mix we need
30 gallons Sodium Hypochlorite
65 Gallons water
12.5 lbs TSP
12.5 lbs Borax
 

john orr

New Member
Lichen, or as I refer to it, Barnacles, will not come off with chem only - their roots are firmly attached to the granules. Apple Sauce will kill it, but only time/rain or pressure will remove it. I have had excellent results with letting rains wash it off, but you must warn the customer that it will turn white. (This will also tell them that it is dead.)
 

Cat Powerwash

New Member
Ok, so how long will it take for the lichen to disappear? How do you explain this to the customer? They will not pay if its still there!
 

newbie pete

New Member
I use a garden hose to rinse off the lichen. It is time consuming. But $400 for 6 hours of work is still worth it in my eyes. However, it does still take of some granules but, these are the granules that the lichen are rooted to and I'm not sure but, I think they'll end up coming off no matter what because the lichen is rooted to it. I could be wrong. I did a roof once that had lichen and let it sit for about a month and a half and went back (after many rainy days) and it was still there. A lot did come off but, there was a noticable amount left. So I'd assume that it would take 3 or so months to fall off and this is only if you've definitly killed it down to the roots. Otherwise it will just grow back. The trick is before you start rinsing it off, make sure that it is pure white because if it hasn't died completely it is tough to get off. An extra 10 minutes spent applying more chemical will save you an hour of rinsing. Or you can just try to convince the customer that it will damage the shingles if you rinse it off and this is the safest way to do it and still try to get the $400 (or whatever) out of them. Some will go for it. If anyone has ever left it up there dead and gone back to check please comment because if I'm damaging the shingles I'd like to know it. And let me know how long it took to come off and if you could see little black spots where the lichen used to be. It's gonna be a tough sell to tell the customer that i can kill the lichen, it's gonna be more noticeable (pure white) for 3 months and they still need to pay me. But if thats the only way to do it then I can argue that
 

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