My roof has black stains all over it on several different parts of the roof. We are thinking about warranty claims for roof shingles. However the industry has a really bad reputation for warranty support. A neighbor has curling shingles after only 7 years. Apparently he has to join a class action suit to get any money back. Even at that it will be minimal in terns of cash. It will not come anywhere close to replacing the roof. With this information, we think there is little chance of any help from the shingle manufacture for us. They do not pay for installation under the warranty so you are really out a great deal of money. It seems that the black stains on our roof is caused by algae and there is not a lot that can be done about it.
Warranty Claims for Roof Shingles – Algae
One solution is to wash the roof with a chemical wash. However you need to take proper precautions to avoid damaging the roof further. In addition there is the cost of the chemical and finding someone who will go up on the roof to apply the chemical.
Our roof is 14 years old and it supposedly has another 11 years to go. They were 25 year shingles. The shingles look physically ok, it is just this black coloring on the roof in specific areas.
We took pictures, had them printed and filled in this long report. I think there is less than a 10% chance that the shingle company will do anything about this.
Update: about two months later, we received a replay. Sure enough they denied the claim and indicated that this is a common mold that forms on many roofs. We have since noticed that many homes in our area have the same problem.
There is basically nothing we can do at this point, so I guess we just live with it.
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