Maintaining Your Cedar Roof

Cedar is a popular material used for building roofs. The reason why cedar would be any architect's first choice for rooftops is very simple. Cedar has the natural property of resistance against moisture that avoids the roof to wear off easily. Due to this, cedar roofs have a longer life compared to other material. Even after considering the cedar roof's advantages, there are some natural causes that contribute to its constant need for maintenance.

Some of the common problems that cedar roofs face are the gathering of moss and algae, mostly during heavy rains. Usually, people ignore this problem, as they are not concerned with the attractiveness of their roofs. As long as the roofs serve their purpose, people are okay with it. Now, people are soon waking up to this problem. Though moss may just disturb you visually, its effect in the long term may prove to be severe. Moss needs water for its survival. Therefore, the water collected in them can harm the quality of your roof causing it to wear off day by day. The tips of maintaining your cedar roofs from natural decays are as follows:

. Controlling the natural growth of moss may not be as difficult as it sounds. There are many chemicals in the market that can help you solve this problem. Using oxygen bleach for controlling moss on your rooftops could be your knight in shining armor. Using this chemical can prove to be your long term solution for preventing moss growth.

Herbicides like zinc sulphate too can help solving this problem. All you have to do is brush your rooftops with these solutions and then simply wash your roof off with water. Along with the water, your moss problem will also be washed away. To take care of your cedar roofs in advance, solution of trisodium phosphate should be applied on your roofs and should be rinsed off with water. This leaves no further chance of any more moss growth on your roofs.

. Algae is another problem for your roofs. It has the potential to feed the essential nutrients from your roof material allowing them to degrade even faster. Getting rid of such algae problems, especially from the rooftops is never easy. The best solution that you can depend on will be to spray your rooftop with lichen or algae killer. In case of algae, no other solution would be wise enough to tackle this problem. It takes a lot of time for your algae problem to disappear, generally, two to four weeks until the results are visible. If you have ignored your algae problem for more than a month, it is relatively difficult to clean off its stains. The next best thing to do here will be to clean your rooftops first and then use an algae killer.

. In case of short-term solutions for moss problems, you can even use a broom or even your bare hands for removing the moss from your roofs. This is because; the root system of the moss is not very complex. Therefore, it is relatively easier to pull it out with your hands as the moss has the tendency to come out along with its roots, which in turn prevents further growth.

Cedar is a very beautiful wood that is used specifically for outdoor purpose. Hence, it is more susceptible to the natural factors like rains and snowfalls. Proper care should be taken to preserve and maintain the quality of the cedar rooftops as these roofs are unique and can last for a lifetime.