Should a person remove the moss on their roof?

be a lert is correct. Just spray the moss with a 10 to 15% bleach and water solution. Just spray it on and leave it. There is really no need to do anything else. The bleach will kill the moss. Do it again in a couple years when it comes back. Shade and moisture causes moss to grow. It has nothing to do with a failing roof.

You don't mention what kind of roof you have, but I assume it's wood (cedar) shingle.

Yes, remove the moss. This is easily done with any of the spray chemical preparations available from any home improvement center. Follow label directions and the moss will go away within a couple of weeks or sooner.

Check your roof for leaks, but frankly, I wouldn't start replacing things unless there is a problem, and having moss form on the roof is not reason enough to start replacing things, so don't get excited.

I had moss form on the roof of my country home for nearly 15 years before I got my first leak and replaced the roof at that point. When I did replace it, however, I used asphalt instead of cedar shingles. The quality of cedar shingle made today does not hold up nearly as well as the stuff from a generation ago, and I would probably never recommend cedar to anyone again.

Remove Moss From Shingles

Anything growing on the roof, especially with shingles, will significantly reduce the useful life of the roof. Moss is especially bad and the longer it is left the worse it is.

Treat with strong bleach solution, equal parts bleach and water for good bleach, straight bleach for cheap bleach. Use a garden sprayer and saturate the moss well. Let it soak for a few hours and wash off with a garden hose. You may have to do this several times to get rid of it.

After you get rid of what is there, you need to take some steps to keep it from growing back. Rinsing with a garden hose once a month or so in warm weather will help. Also, you can buy zinc strips to install under the top row of shingles. The zinc will deter future growth. The best solution is to remove the trees or whatever is shading the area to allow it to stay moist. Obviously this often is not desirable for other reasons, so I would try the less drastic solutions first.

Moss (or anything else) growing on your roof does not automatically indicate a failure. Moss does not require standing water, just a bit of moisture. Roofing materials of any type do not "shed" all of the water off. Most of the water will run off, but a certain amount stays on the roofing material due to surface tension. Normally the small amount that remains on the roof will evaporate rather quickly, but if the roof is shaded it may take quite some time. The amount of water retained on a shingle roof is greater because of the texture, once moss had started to grow the amount of moisture retained increases.

In addition to the moisture, moss does require some sort of food. Noting in shingles will provide nutrients, but over a period of time any roof will develop a film of organic material that settles on it that is sufficient for growth. Again the texture of shingles increases the problem but it can happen on any kind of roof. Rinsing the dirt away will help considerably.

moss on the roof indicates a big problem- your roof is holding water instead of draining it down. Before long you'll have a leak. Ripping the moss off may end up pulling up some shingles too, but leaving the moss on there will only allow it to burrow further into your roof... long story short- leave it on there for now, but replace your roof soon...and with your roof being prone to having moss grow on it, you might want to look into a tin roof.

You should remove the moss on your roof, because that means that the shingles are not repelling the water, and are just soaking it up. the moss should be removed, then you should call a roofer to replace the shingles that won't repel water. this may get a bit spendy though.

Yes, you need to remove the moss, repair the moisture source allowing it to grow (roofer) and make sure that there has been no additional mold penetration into the roof or joists. If there has, the mold needs proper cleaning as well.