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Script:

“Today we’re out in Cornelius looking at a valley on this roof. We thought initially it was the debris that was backing up inside this valley (causing a leak) but it is not. A couple of things are going on here. One the roof has two layers. Two when the homeowner bought the house it already had this roof and they didn’t realize whoever put the roof on completely installed this roof wrong. There’s an area called a nailing zone, you have to hit that nailing zone with your nails or the roof is just not going to function right.

I’m going to show you what we noticed right away. This part of the shingle started pulling out. These are called the dragon teeth. What’s happening is there are no nails holding this part on. There’s a nailing zone right here where this line is. This line is where the nail should be. If there had been a nail here this piece would have never slid out but they are. So now the water is feeding back in behind the shingle running back in behind this piece of metal and finding that second layer of roofing and leaking on the inside. We did find some nails on this roof though, way up at the top of the shingle, completely wrong. Every shingle has about 3 nails, here, there there’s one over there all those nails should have been right along that line, minimum of 4 nails. They didn’t (install them correctly) they put them up here and this entire roof is installed incorrectly so there is absolutely no warranty on this roof and unfortunately this homeowner really needs to replace this roof.”

We’re on a 7 year old asphalt shingle roof. This is actually the best I have ever seen a copper or zinc strip work. This is actually copper so it matches the color of the house so you can see that it kept the moss off for about 5 rows and then it starts growing on there and you can see how heavy it (the moss) gets as the farther away from the zinc or copper strip.

This copper strip seems to be working a lot better than the zinc strips that I’ve seen. Of course underneath the trees it gets pretty bad, and this moss will actually destroy this roof. It will eat it and lift it and cause it to leak in half the time if it was maintained or was in an area where there wasn’t moss problems.

Also, in an area of debris, you can’t let this happen. This will rot out the shingles and this intersection here would be compromised if this was not maintained. Of course we are looking at the north side and you can see all the way across the roof that for the first two or three feet that copper is working really well. Then as the copper oxide runs out of energy the moss starts growing.

Roof Life of Oregon does roof maintenance on all types of roofing. This is an example of a 40 year architectural laminated shingle 5-7 years old growing quite a bit of a moss so we are going to help this client.

My neighbor had their roof cleaned by Roof Life of Oregon. I went out to see how the job was being done and to make sure my house wouldn’t get splattered. Didn’t think there would be a problem because of the distance between the houses. Wrong! Went back out later and found debris from my neighbor’s roof splattered all over the side of my house from the top floor to the ground – somehow splattering the crud even higher on my house than the height of the single story house he was working on . . .

What Dan doesn’t take into account is when we clean a roof we also clean out all of the gutters. ‘Splattering crud’ is inevitable as we explain, with your mind in the gutter, the problem with gutter debris.

Crud Contributing to Corruption

Have you ever looked at the crud lying in the bottom of your gutters? Living in the Pacific Northwest, we get this stuff called Oregon Slime that’s comprised of decaying roof debris and the granules from your asphalt composition roof. This perfect cocktail of man-made and mother nature materials makes for a pesky and problematic disposal process. In short, it takes some force to eject that mess out of your gutters. Inevitably it finds its way into the nearby trees, shrubs, grass and onto your neighbors property.

Natural Wear & Tear

Have you ever been on an AstroTurf field after it was recently completed? How about a rubberized track? For the next month you’re busy running around your house picking up little rubber pieces that made their way into your shoes. That’s the exact what happens with an asphalt composition roof. During the first five years, a new asphalt composition roof takes time to settle and all the excess granules fall into your gutters. If you have an older roof, that’s been neglected or battling erratic weather, you’ll probably find a substantial amount of granules in your gutters too. There’s no way to prevent this gutter debris from piling up and gluing the granules down won’t do you any good; it’s just the roofing materials way of saying, “HELP, I’m getting old and worn out!”

Pressure isn’t a Factor

We dispelled the myth yesterday that our water pressure system wasn’t a contributing factor to Dan K’s complaint about splattering crud. We will admit that the natural degredation of asphalt composition shingles contributed to making a mess on Dan’s home. Another factor is home’s are being built closer and closer together due to our growing population. The closer homes are built to each other, the greater the possibility of splattering crud on your neighbors property.

However, just like a cook in the kitchen, if we make a mess we’ll clean it up regardless of how many homes it affects. We take pride in providing peace of mind to whomever we come in contact with. If you’ve got a stubborn mess of gutter ooze let Roof Life of Oregon take care of the gutter debris mess; we’ll make sure we clean up any of the remains left over. Roof estimates are free of charge and you can call our office during the day, 503-925-0125, our staff is awaiting the chance to serve you and your family.

The photo below shows a great comparison between a roof properly maintained using the Roof Life of Oregon roof maintenance process, roofs choosing a competitors process, and roofs choosing not to do anything.

All of the roofs in the picture are 15-20 years old, but some have aged better than others. The natural light ash gray roof in the center of the photo is the roof that’s used the Roof Life of Oregon process. This roof was treated approximately six to nine months ago allowing the treatment process to completely clean off the roof. Other roofs in the distance have varying shades of color. The darker the roof appears the more infested it is with moss, algae, or lichen.

Dark brown or black is not the natural color of cedar and can only be obtained by not performing regular roof maintenance. The longer debris sits on your roof the more likely it is to turn your roof’s color from a natural light ash gray to a dark and murky black. Aside from the aesthetic benefits, keeping the debris off your roof could increase your roof’s life 15 even 20 years beyond the manufacture’s warranty. For more information on the benefits of keeping roof debris off your roof give us at call at [503-925-0125] or contact us via our free estimate form.

Below is a photo of a roof with tree debris. The areas to really focus on are the keyways, the space between each shake, which are filled with roof debris on large portion of this roof.

You will see the noticeable difference between the debris laden roof and the roof after being using our industrial compressor blow. The keyways will be clear allowing our team to accurately assess the repair needs of the roof.

Homes categorized with an environment of medium or heavy debris must have their roofs compressor blown annually to maintain our three or five year no-leak no-growth guarantee. Having your roof annually compressor blown keep your roof’s keyways clear which will also help keep your valleys and gutters free of debris. The more debris you have on your roof the more repairs and problems you’ll have.

Living in the Greater Portland area makes it nearly impossible to not have some kind of roof debris. If you’ve never been up on your roof before it’s difficult to know what it looks like or how bad the debris is. The roof below is a great example of a roof that has not been maintained in a heavy tree area.

There are several types of roof debris that may be on your roof which can be found below:

At Roof Life of Oregon we offer a no leak and no growth guarantee for three or five years. However, if you’re roof has tree debris like this you need to have your roof compressor blown annually to maintain our guarantee. This helps your roof looking good, working right, and lasting longer than allowing heavy tree debris to sap the life out of your roof.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If its been a while since you’ve checked your gutters, let Roof Life of Oregon scamper up on your roof to check it out.

To read the scripted video see below.

We’re going to be able to tell this client if the tree debris will plug it up in one year, why don’t we just trim this tail back, it will allow this gutter to, excuse me, this valley to clear out and kind of flow the junk down the roof and allow this to self drain. It’s pretty amazing how this plugs up pretty quick. It also drizzles for a long time after a rain storm and leaves green streaks down the roof just from the green slime that comes out. I’m just going to continually clean this out. This can be solved by trimming this gutter back and it also doesn’t allow the water to go up underneath the shake which can get to the felt paper and wet rot it out. That’s a little something about keeping those gutter returns trimmed back so that the valleys can clear out and it just is a way to make your roof work right and last longer and take care of you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If its been a while since you’ve checked your gutters, let Roof Life of Oregon scamper up on your roof to check it out.

To read the scripted video see below.

This is Patrick Morin, Roof Life of Oregon. We’re on a 19 year old shake roof in Portland, OR and I want to show you a scenario that we have where the gutters were put on this roof and run tight to the roof at the bottom of a valley and what happens is tree debris comes down and gets stopped from clearing out of the valley by this gutter which is trying to drain, you can come up here and see all the water that sits in this gutter system. Our solution to do on this is to trim this gutter tail back probably 3 inches at the high side and back maybe 2 inches down here and that actually will allow the tree debris to, now you see when this was originally installed there’s just this little teeny gap here for water to traverse out and any kind of material is going to cause it to plug up.

Patrick talks about the importance of keeping your Cedar, Composition, and Tile roofs clear of excess tree debris.

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He tells us about Compressor Blowing your roof. Why we do this and how we do it! He also tells us the different levels of tree debris and how they need to be maintained.

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He talks about Heavy debris on Portland Roofs and the difference between a backpack blow and a compressor blow. Shake, Composition, and Tile roofs require blowing for health and longevity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He talks about composition shingle and what happens when tree debris is left on them. He also talks about why it is important to monitor the tree debris level on your roof.

If it has been a while since you have looked at your roof, let Roof Life come and check it out for you.

Call us for a Free Inspection!