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Height-safe & insured
Roof cleaning from $880. Concrete tile, terracotta and Colorbond. The method is matched to your roof — moss, lichen and algae killed at the root, and never the high pressure that strips the coating off a concrete tile and leaves the roof worse than it started. Working at Heights certified and $20 million insured.
Why licensing matters
The question that separates a good roof clean from an expensive mistake is a simple one, and it is worth asking whoever you hire: what pressure are you putting on my tiles?
A concrete tile has a factory-applied surface coating. It is thin, and it is the only thing between the weather and the porous aggregate underneath. A high-pressure lance strips it in seconds. The roof looks dramatically better that afternoon, and holds moss faster than it ever did within about two years.
High pressure also drives water where it should not go. Under laps, past ridge capping, through pointing that was already tired. A roof is built to shed water falling on it, not water pushed sideways underneath it at three thousand psi.
So the honest answer is that we soft wash roofs. A biodegradable treatment at low pressure, dwell time, then a controlled rinse. It is slower, it is less dramatic on the day, and it is the only method that leaves the roof in better condition than it found it.
We carry $20 million public liability insurance, every crew member who goes on a roof is Working at Heights certified, and the site runs to a documented safe work method statement signed by each worker. No other exterior cleaning business in Toowoomba publishes a cover figure. Ours is on the compliance page, and certificates go out with every quote.
Treatment applied at low pressure and left to work, rather than blasted off. The growth dies at the root, so it starts again from nothing rather than from a surviving colony.
Toowoomba's roof problem
Timing is everything
Roofs can be cleaned year round in Toowoomba, but the result shows fastest when weather does some of the work for you. Here is how the year runs.
First treatment as growth becomes visible again. Moss and lichen are easiest to kill while they are actively growing rather than dormant.
Watch the shaded southern faces and anything under trees. Those elevations hold moisture longest and always go first.
The most useful clean of the year. Pair it with gutter cleaning before storm season, so the debris loosened off the roof gets carried away rather than washed straight into your downpipes. Killing the moss and lichen now also stops it re-establishing over a damp Toowoomba winter.
The window to book if you are selling. Early enough that the dead growth has weathered off before the photographer arrives.
The detail that decides it
Autumn. A good time to treat, with mild days and enough rain afterwards to carry dead growth off the tiles. Also the sensible time to pair a roof clean with gutter cleaning, before the storm season.
Winter. Toowoomba's foggiest months, and when moss looks worst. A treatment now works, but the roof stays damp longer so dead growth clings on. Fine if you are treating the problem rather than chasing an instant look.
Spring. The best window if you are selling. Book early enough that the dead growth has weathered off before the photographer arrives, which means two to three months ahead of listing, not two weeks.
Summer. Heat and UV break down dead lichen faster than any other time of year, so a roof treated in late spring usually looks its best by February. Storm season also makes a clear gutter worth more than usual.
What we clean: concrete tile · terracotta tile · Colorbond and metal · cement tile · ridge capping and valleys · patio and pergola roofs · shed and carport roofs · gutters and downpipes on completion.
Around your household
Plants under the eaves are wet down before we start and rinsed again afterwards. That dilution is what actually protects them, far more than any claim about the product being gentle. Tell us about anything valuable or fussy along the drip line and we will cover it.
If you collect roof water into a tank, tell us before we start. We disconnect or divert the downpipes, treat the roof, flush the gutters, then reconnect. On rural and acreage blocks around Toowoomba this is routine, and we ask about it at quote stage rather than waiting for you to raise it.
Pets and children stay inside while the roof is being treated. The area is clear as soon as the final rinse is finished, and we tell you when that is rather than leaving you to guess.
Worth explaining
The dark streaks running down a Colorbond or tile roof are not dirt, and they are not rust. They are Gloeocapsa magma, an airborne algae that colonises roof surfaces and holds moisture against them.
It thrives in exactly the conditions Toowoomba provides: cool nights, dew that sits on the roof until mid-morning, and fog rolling in off the escarpment. A Brisbane roof of the same age and the same material often has none of it.
Pressure washing removes the visible streak and leaves the colony behind. That is why a blasted roof is streaked again within a season or two, and why the second clean is always the harder one — by then there is coating damage to work around as well.
A soft wash treatment kills it outright, so regrowth has to start from spores landing on a clean surface rather than from an established colony. That is the difference between a result measured in years and one measured in months.
The slow one
Lichen is the slow one, and the one people misjudge. It is not a plant sitting on top of the tile. It is a fungus and an alga living together, anchored into the surface by a holdfast that grows down into the pores.
That holdfast is why lichen will not simply wash off. You can blast a tile hard enough to remove it, and you will take the tile's coating with it. The lichen then returns into the rougher surface faster than it grew the first time.
Treated properly it dies on the day, then weathers away over the following weeks as rain and wind work on the dead crust. Most roofs look their best two to three months after the visit. If you need an instant result for a sale, say so, and we will either plan the job differently or tell you honestly that there is not enough time.
The honest version
A clean roof and a sound roof are different things, and we will not pretend otherwise. Cleaning a roof does not fix cracked tiles, failed pointing, rusted sheeting or perished valleys.
What a clean does do is let you see them. Half the value of having someone on your roof is the photographs they bring back down. We report on cracked and slipped tiles, deteriorated ridge capping, rust at the laps, blocked or perished valleys, and anything that looks like it has been leaking.
We are not roof plumbers and we do not quote repairs, so there is nothing in it for us to overstate what we find. If your roof needs a trade rather than a clean, you will be told that before we invoice you, not after.
Why us for this work
Soft wash by default, from $880. Where a surface genuinely takes pressure — weathered metal, heavy oxidation — we will tell you and use it. On a coated concrete tile we will not. Call 0490 397 740 or send photos for a firm price.
$20 million public liability, Working at Heights certification and a signed safe work method statement on every site — plus police-checked crew and White Card. Certificates of currency on request. No other exterior cleaning business in Toowoomba publishes a cover figure.
Photographs of the whole roof, before and after — including the parts you cannot see from the ground, and anything up there that needs a roof plumber rather than us.
Roof, gutters and solar panels in one booking — done in the right order so nothing you have already paid for gets dirtied by the next step. Also available to property managers, schools, childcare centres and body corporates with documentation supplied as standard.
Honest advice — sometimes the answer is trimming back the tree that is shading the roof, not cleaning it again in eighteen months.
Family-owned, 5.0 rated with 80+ Google reviews.
Common questions
The Range climate. At around 700 metres, Toowoomba gets cool nights, persistent fog and heavy dew, and a roof is the coldest, wettest surface on the house for several hours every morning. Lichen in particular is slow-growing and needs exactly those conditions, which is why Toowoomba roofs carry crusty grey-green patches that a Brisbane roof of the same age simply does not have.
On a concrete tile roof, yes. Concrete tiles have a factory surface coating. A high-pressure lance strips it, exposes the aggregate underneath and leaves a rough, porous surface that holds moss better than it did before. It also drives water under the tiles and can dislodge pointing and ridge capping. Soft washing avoids all of that, which is why it is our default on tile.
It does real damage. Lichen puts down a holdfast that bonds into the tile surface, and on concrete tiles it slowly degrades the coating. Moss holds water against the tile and dams up in valleys and behind ridges, which is how water finds its way under laps. On a metal roof, growth traps moisture against the coating and shortens its life.
This is the part people are not told, so here it is plainly. A soft wash kills the growth on the day, but dead lichen does not fall off immediately. Most of it lifts within the first few weeks as rain and wind work on it, and a roof usually looks its best around two to three months after treatment. If you need an instant result for a sale or an inspection, tell us and we will plan the job differently.
We access the roof where it is safe and necessary. A competent operator walks the supported parts of a tile, over the batten line, never mid-span. Breakages are rare and if we break one we replace it. On brittle old terracotta, or on a roof in poor condition, we will say so before quoting and work from edges and ladders instead.
Yes, and it is worth doing together. Panels get masked and rinsed, and we will clean them properly at the same visit. Roof runoff carrying lichen residue onto freshly cleaned panels is the reason solar panel cleaning and roof cleaning belong in the same booking rather than months apart.
Gutters are flushed as part of the job. If you collect roof water into a tank, tell us and we will disconnect or divert the downpipes before we start and reconnect afterwards. This is standard practice on rural and acreage properties around Toowoomba, and we ask the question at quote stage rather than waiting for you to raise it. Gutter cleaning is usually booked with a roof clean for the same reason.
Typically every four to six years for a tile roof in the open, and sooner where trees overhang or the roof faces south. Metal roofs generally go longer. A roof that has never been treated will need more work the first time than it does on any subsequent visit.
No. TopWash cleans, treats and maintains roofs. We do not spray roof coatings or restore pointing. If a roof needs re-coating or repointing, we will tell you so, and you will get a straight answer about whether a clean is worth doing first.
Working at Heights certification for every crew member on the roof, a documented and signed safe work method statement for the site, police checks, and $20 million public liability. No other exterior cleaning business in Toowoomba publishes a public liability figure. We publish ours because roof work is exactly where it matters. See our compliance and insurance documents, or call 0490 397 740.
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Pricing
Get in touch with James
Send a photo of what's growing and we'll tell you what it is, whether it needs treating now or at a better time of year, and what it'll cost.
A roof clean is usually booked alongside gutters and solar — see gutter cleaning & renovations →