Roof Moss Removal in Oak Bay

Oak Bay is a separate municipality from Saanich and Victoria, sitting between the two and the water, and it is the one place in our area where the trees plainly outrank the houses. The Garry oaks, the big Douglas firs and cedars, and the boulevard trees along the residential streets are older than most of the roofs beneath them, and plenty of people moved here for exactly that canopy.

That is a fair trade, but it shapes your roof. A house that spends its winters in shade, in air that rarely dries out, will grow moss on any slope that faces away from the sun. Our job is to keep that growth from holding water against your roofing, and to do it without harming the trees and gardens that make the place what it is.

What an oak drops on a roof

Garry oak behaves differently from the conifers we deal with across most of Saanich. Instead of a steady rain of needles, it sheds in bursts: leaves through late autumn, catkins and twigs in spring, and the odd dead limb in between. Wet oak leaves flatten into a mat that sits on the courses for weeks, and under that mat the surface stays damp long after the rest of the roof has dried.

The oaks also carry their own lichen and moss on the bark, and every windy day sends fragments of it onto the roof below. So a roof under an oak is being seeded and kept damp at the same time. Where firs and cedars stand nearby as well, the needle litter fills in the gaps the oak leaves miss.

None of this calls for touching the tree. It calls for clearing your roof at the right point in the year, ideally once the leaves are down, and keeping the valleys and the eave courses open so water can leave the roof the way it was designed to.

Tudor rooflines and older shingle

A good share of the houses here are Tudor revival or arts-and-crafts, many from the first half of the last century. Those styles bring steep main roofs, cross gables, shed dormers and deep eaves with exposed rafter tails. They also bring roofs that have been replaced several times, so a single house can carry an older asphalt layer on the porch, newer shingle on the main slopes, and cedar on a garage out the back.

We work out what each surface is before deciding how to treat it. Older asphalt has fewer granules left to lose, which is why we use soft brushes and hand tools and never put pressure on it. Washing an aged shingle hard can make it look clean for a season while costing it years.

Shake roofs that have earned their age

Cedar shake is more common in Oak Bay than almost anywhere else we cover, on both the character homes and the postwar houses tucked between them. On cedar, the damage starts along the butt line, the thick lower edge of each shake. Moss roots into the gap between courses, holds water against that edge, and the wood softens and curls from the bottom up.

That is why shake work here is slow and done by hand. We clear the keyways course by course, take the growth out of the butt line without prying at the wood, and leave the shakes seated. You will know at the end how much life the roof has left, because we will tell you what we saw up there.

Uplands: big lots, long shadows

Uplands is the opposite of a tight city lot. Houses sit well back on large properties, often on slopes that fall toward the water, with established trees on every side. Space for ladders is rarely the problem. The garden usually is: deep planted beds under the eaves, specimen shrubs, stone terraces and lawns that nobody wants trampled.

On these properties we plan the route in before we set up — where the ladder goes, which beds need stepping around, how debris comes down and where it is bagged. Roofs here can be large and broken into many planes, and the north faces may not see direct sun from November to March.

Salt air along the south shore

Along South Oak Bay and the waterfront streets, the canopy thins and the weather changes. The wind off the strait dries the open slopes faster, so deep moss gives way to lichen and dark streaking on the exposed faces. The lee side of the same roof, sheltered by the house or a hedge, can still carry heavy moss.

Estevan, Henderson and the Gonzales side

Inland, around Estevan Village, Henderson and the streets running toward Gonzales, the lots tighten and the houses get more modest: bungalows, storey-and-a-halfs and the occasional infill. The boulevard trees do much of the shading here, which means the street-facing slope is often the worst one. The work is quicker per house, and it is the same careful work.

The estimate is free, with no obligation, and we are insured and WCB-registered.

Oak Bay borders Victoria on the Fairfield side and Saanich to the north, and we work across Gordon Head as well.