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Chuck47 · 12-21-2015, 04:56 PM

Been surfing through this forum today til my old eyes are blurry and I gotta quit. At the last minute I saw a roof question that made me decide to ask this question. Would you use TSP to clean a rubber roof? I just used it to prep some paint for re-painting the garage doors on my house and it's a very powerful cleaner but I'm wondering, TOO powerful? My roof is getting older but I keep it parked under a roof so it's in fairly good shape but showing some age, so I don't want to do anything to accelerate the ageing process.

Bfmorgan · 12-21-2015, 05:45 PM

I would be a little bit worried about TSP's strength. I use Dicor's Rubber Roof Cleaner. It works really well.

Nana25K · 12-21-2015, 05:51 PM

No. no as and no. To stong. Use a cleaner made for rubber roofs.

Santara · 12-21-2015, 06:19 PM

spic & span --- soft brush

Pigman1 · 12-21-2015, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santara

spic & span --- soft brush

Almost.... WHen we had a diesel Bounder with a rubber roof I used to use Spic-N-Span with a long handled scrub brush. The kind of a stiff bristled brush grandma used to use on her floors when she used Spic-N-Span on the floors. A couple of cautions. Be sure you have a hose on the roof and use it liberally. Scrub small sections and rinse liberally. Second, if you have someone on the ground hook up a second hose for them. Let them continually rinse the sides as you rinse the roof to remove the residual soap. You don't want this stuff to dry on the sidewalls as it'll leave streaks that are hard to remove. Better to use a lot of water to keep it rinsed.

When making up your Spic-N-Span, mix it in a bucket of warm/hot water to be sure it's completely dissolved, and apply it with you scrub brush. Do not sprinkle the dry powder on the wet roof. The least amount of Spic-N-Span that will get the roof clean is what you need to use. It's a trade off with scrubbing. More cleaner, less scrubbing needed, but the more chance for side streaking and a lot more work later. The Spic-N-Span powder can be hard to find, but we get ours from Ace Hardware. I did not have good results with the liquid. It just didn't work without 2 or three times the scrubbing. A lot of extra work.

Gary RVRoamer · 12-22-2015, 08:08 AM

TSP is a caustic soda rather than a detergent, so I would not risk use that. It is toxic too.

You can use any all-purpose cleaning detergent, e.g. Simple Green, 409, Spic 'n Span, Awesome, Mean Green, etc. You don't need a special "rubber roof cleaner". Add a cup of bleach too - it's helps kill the mold that hides deep in the pores of the EPDM.

wildtoad · 12-22-2015, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santara

spic & span --- soft brush

This and perhaps a little bleach...

Chuck47 · 12-22-2015, 09:12 AM

Alrighty then. 5 immediate replies, all NO! Was never good at math but I think that's pretty close to 100% isn't it? I'll use the left over tsp for something else. Thanks very much for your response