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The black streaks come off. The granules stay on.
Asphalt shingle roofs around Conway, Heber Springs and Greers Ferry Lake, cleaned at under 100 PSI. No pressure wand touches a roof here at any setting, because the thing that takes the streaking off under pressure also takes the roof’s surface off with it.
Roofs run $500–$2,500 depending on pitch, height and how much is growing up there. Quoted before anything is booked.
What the streaks are
It is alive, and it is eating the roof.
Those dark stripes running down a roof are not dirt and they are not soot. They are a blue-green algae that arrived as an airborne spore, landed on a damp north-facing slope, and stayed. It survives on moisture and on the limestone filler used to bulk out asphalt shingle, which is why it settles in and spreads rather than washing off in the next storm.
It runs downward in stripes because that is the way water moves. It shows worst on the north and the shaded slopes because those stay wet longest after rain. And it holds moisture against the shingle, which is the actual problem — not the look of it.
Pressure will take it off. Pressure will also strip the mineral granules that give a shingle its weather layer, and once those are in the gutter they do not go back. That is the whole reason this job is done with solution and time instead of force.
How a roof gets done
Four steps, and none of them involve a wand.
Everything below gets covered
Beds, shrubs and anything planted against the wall are protected before a drop of solution is mixed. On a roof job the whole rinse comes down the elevations, so this step carries more weight than it does on a house wash.
Solution goes on at low pressure
Applied at under 100 PSI and left to work. The algae dies on the shingle. That is the job — there is no scrubbing stage and no mechanical stage.
It rinses off the way rain would
Gentle rinse, top down, so nothing dries on the surface and nothing is driven under a shingle edge.
You see it from the ground
Roof work is judged from where people actually look at it. If a slope still reads streaky from the driveway, it gets another pass before the trailer moves.
If the gutters are streaked too, they are soft washed as well — gutters take up to 300 PSI, still well below what a driveway sees.
Straight answers
What people ask before booking a roof.
Will this damage my shingles?
No, because the roof is never pressure washed. An asphalt shingle roof is soft washed at under 100 PSI. A pressure wand at any setting blasts the granules off, and those granules are the part of the shingle doing the work.
That is also why the roofing trade’s own guidance is low pressure. A clean roof is not worth a shortened one.
How long before the streaks come back?
Longer on a sunny roof than a shaded one. Roofs only want redoing when streaking actually shows again, which is why there is no schedule on this one — you look at it, and if it is clean it is clean.
A roof under heavy tree cover will always come back sooner than one in open sun. That is the shade, not the wash.
What does it cost?
Roofs run $500 to $2,500. Pitch, height, how much is growing on it and how much of the roof is reachable all move the number. Every roof is quoted before anything is booked.
What about the plants underneath?
Covered before any solution is mixed. Roof work runs the rinse straight down the walls and into the beds, so the covering matters more here than anywhere else on the property.
Do I need to be home?
No. It is all outside. You will get told when it is done.
Usually the same visit
What gets done alongside a roof.
House Washing
The rinse comes down the walls anyway. Siding is soft washed at about 100 PSI in the same visit, which is why the two are almost always quoted together.
House Washing →Soft Washing
The method itself, and which other surfaces on the property want it rather than pressure.
Soft Washing →Concrete Cleaning
Flatwork is the opposite job: 3,000 to 4,000 PSI on a surface cleaner. A clean roof over a green driveway looks half finished.
Concrete Cleaning →Where we wash
Towns this runs in.
Roof work runs out of Conway, Fairfield Bay and Heber Springs, across Faulkner, Van Buren and Cleburne counties. The lake houses take the most of it — tree cover and damp mornings are what algae wants.
Worth reading first
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Start here
Send a photo of the worst slope.
Shot from the driveway is fine. You will get a number and what is inside it before anything is booked.
Or look through the photographs of finished jobs first.