Pressure Washing Your Cedar Roof
It used to be the only choice for homeowners. If you wanted to take care of your roof, you pressure-washed.
Is it ok to be pressure washing my roof? If I’ve heard that question once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. I would always answer them with the same answer: Our crews are trained and experienced and we use a type of pressure washer that uses a high volume of water with a moderate amount of pressure. They were built to do exactly what we are using them for.
All of the information I gave to my clients was true and we did the best we could with the technology available.
In 1998 I began to research products and processes that could preserve cedar without having to prep it by a pressure wash. After two years of looking I found Dennco Chemical Company in Eugene, Oregon. They had a product that could be applied to shake roofs that were aged and covered with destructive growth and as long as the roofs were free of debris it would clean the roof of black fungus, green algae, and moss.
The product will keep the roof preserved for five full years just by changing and controlling the PH of the roof’s surface.
I also like the fact that ground water was no longer being wasted through pressure washing of the roof and that the products provided by Dennco Chemical to Roof Life of Oregon were 100% environmentally friendly.
Finally, my favorite thing about these unique treatments for your cedar roof by Dennco Chemical: Roof Life of Oregon is the only place in the greater Portland area were you can find them!
Cedar Roofing Secrets
The real secret to cedar roofing is to find and use the highest grade shakes or shingles available. That’s not as simple and easy as it sounds because they are heavily guarded. In the roofing world they are like gold! Where they are found and how to acquire them and how to transport them into Portland is a well-guarded secret.
Most roofing contractors use an average shake when they replace your roof. After taking care of shake roofs in the Portland area for 24 years, Roof Life of Oregon is committed to installing the best shakes and shingles the industry can deliver. We bring them in from Canada on super big trucks and then we hand deliver them to your roof using state of the art technology.
A follow up secret to cedar roofing is to maintain a staff that are experts in cedar shake installation. We install a lot of shake roofs for home owners, but never for builders. The third secret to installing the best cedar roof in town is to match the components. For example our underlayment is called Feltex. It is fifty times stronger than the industry’s thirty pound shake felt.
Feltex will last as long as a good shake will, felt paper will not. We use stainless steel fasteners (you’d call them nails but they’re a very special nail) so they will last as long as a good shake will, regular galvanized nails will not. The bottom starter course on a roof (this is the row of cedar shingles UNDER the row of shakes just above your rain gutter) stays wet longer than any part of the roof so we use the best wood and have it pressure treated. We even do this on our regular cedar roof replacements.
We suggest if you are going to use cedar shakes or shingles for roofing your home that you use a pretreated, manufacturer warranted 30 or 50-year shake. They look good and when matched with the right components as mentioned above, they will last a very long time and will be your best and safest choice when replacing your roof.