Should You Pressure Wash Your Roof?

A dirty or unclean roof on your home can seriously impact its look and curb appeal. While this can be an annoyance for homeowners, it’s important to know how to go about cleaning your roof the right way. When combining the difficulty of accessing your roof with the unique materials that make it up, it can be confusing. This leads to most people thinking that they should pressure wash their roofs.

At Zimmerman’s Roofing, we know the idea of pressure washing your roof can seem tempting. Pressure washing seems to offer instant results, but it can actually be damaging to your roof. In this blog, we explain why you shouldn’t pressure wash your roof and some alternative options.

Why You Shouldn’t Pressure Wash Your Roof

You should not pressure wash your roof. We’ll dive into the specific reasons why, but in short, it’s very dangerous and can go wrong quickly. However, instead of pressure washing, there are plenty of safe roof cleaning options that professionals like the team at Zimmerman’s Roofing can assist you with. 

Some of the reasons to not pressure wash your roof include:

Damages to Your Roof & Home

While roofs are strong, they are not designed to withhold sustained water blasts that a pressure washer creates. Since the power is so high with normal pressure washing, it could cause long-term damage to your roof as it erodes the materials of your roof.

While pressure washing would remove the dirt that has piled up on your roof, it would cause much more damage to its integrity. Missing shingles, damaged tiles, dented metal, and more are all negative consequences of using high-powered pressure washing on your roof.

Climbing Dangers

Another risk or pressure washing is your own well-being. Accessing roofs can already be difficult or dangerous if you don’t have the proper tools, and once you’re up there, walking around poses even more of a risk. Once you add a pressure washing system to the mix, the fall risk becomes incredibly high. The added water from pressure washing will only serve to create a slippery effect, which can cause you to fall or slide off of your roof.

Electrical Hazards

Perhaps the costliest issue on the list, the potential for electrical hazards is far too high to pressure wash your roof. Any exposed wiring that comes in contact could cause an immediate electrical shock to you. On top of your own safety, you run the risk of damaging your entire home’s electrical wiring network. With how strong the water blast is, it can easily seep into your wires and cause issues. The consequences of this can range from electrical systems not working all the way to a home fire. Either way, the risk is not worth the reward in this case.

Best Practices for Roof Cleaning

Roof cleaning is one of those tasks that shouldn’t be DIYed. Instead, leave it to the professionals like our team at Zimmerman’s Roofing. We have the necessary tools and skills to safely and effectively clean your roof.

While normal pressure washing comes with a high-powered stream of water, our team opts to use a low-pressure water stream when we clean roofs. This lowered pressure allows us to clean off harmful materials such as dirt, moss, and black streaks from your roof without dealing damage.

Before we use the water, we apply a strong cleaning solution to your roof. Once the solution is applied to your roof, it can be washed off with the low-pressured water stream and provide your roof with a clean look.

Choose Zimmerman’s Roofing for Your Roof Cleaning Needs

Instead of risking your roof’s quality and your safety, let the team at Zimmerman’s Roofing assist you. With our low-pressure, highly safe cleaning solution, our roofing cleaning process will provide you with a clean roof without the damage of water pressure cleaning.

Since 1996 we’ve provided outstanding roof cleaning services to the Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania communities and would be honored to add you to the list.

Contact Zimmerman’s Roofing today to schedule a roof cleaning appointment in Pennsylvania today.