How much should you pay to have your roof cleaned?

Ask for a price per square metre and most roof cleaners will tell you the same thing: it depends. They are not dodging the question. A roof clean is not a set product like a boiler service. It is a day or more of careful work whose length is decided by what is growing on the roof and how safely the crew can reach it.

Size comes first, and pitch matters as much as footprint. A bungalow has less surface to treat than a steep two-storey roof built on the same plan, and a steep slope takes longer to work across safely. Two similar semi-detached houses can differ in price simply because a roof ladder reaches every part of one gentle slope while the other house needs a tower before anyone can step onto it.

The growth itself is the next variable. A light green film on concrete tiles is quick to treat. Thick cushions of moss have to be lifted by hand before anything else happens, which takes real time, and the waste then has to be bagged and lowered to the ground. Moss that has settled into valleys and behind chimneys is slower again, because a brush cannot reach it from a distance.

The covering underneath

Slate, clay and concrete do not take the same treatment. Natural slate is thin and brittle underfoot, old clay tiles vary from one to the next, and even tough concrete tiles can crack if they are handled roughly. A roofer working on slate moves more slowly and uses lighter tools, and that shows in the price. Treat the covering as part of the question whenever you ask for a price, and mention it if you know what it is.

Cleaning rarely stops at the slope. Once the moss is off, the roof is visible in a way it may not have been for years, and that is when slipped tiles, cracked pointing and tired flashings show up. A sensible clean includes a look at each of them, and what the roofer finds is reported to you in plain words with photographs.

Gutters are the most common companion to a roof clean. Moss brushed or washed down a slope has to go somewhere, and if it is not collected it ends up in the gutter and the downpipe. A clean that leaves the gutters packed with debris has moved the problem rather than removed it. Our guide to moss, gutters and downpipes explains why the two jobs belong together. When you ask for a price, ask whether clearing the gutters is part of the quote you are given.

Treatment and protection

After the growth is lifted, most roofers apply a biocide, a treatment that kills what is left in the surface of the tiles. It works over time, so the roof does not look transformed on the day. Some firms also offer a coating over the cleaned tiles, which adds work and materials to the job. Treat a coating as an optional extra to be discussed on its own merits, and never as part of a basic clean.

Ask what is being applied, how it is stopped from reaching plants and drains, and what the roofer expects the roof to look like in the weeks afterwards. A firm that can answer those three questions has usually thought the job through. If the answers are vague, the quote probably is too, and the price may only cover a quick wash.

Access can change the size of a bill more than the cleaning does. A low bungalow slope may be reached from a ladder and a roof ladder in an hour. A tall house with a steep pitch over a front path may need a tower or a full scaffold, and the cost of getting up there becomes a big share of the bill.

Checkatrade's scaffolding table, last updated in October 2026, lists about £875 monthly for a two-storey semi, £800 for a terrace, £1,000 for a detached bungalow and £1,200 for a detached house, and a chimney scaffold at around £660 weekly. Those are monthly hire rates, and a roof clean is far shorter than a month. Ask whether scaffolding is really required, and for how long it would stand.

Licences when scaffold stands on the pavement

Where scaffolding stands on or over the highway, section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 means a licence has to come from the county's highways team, so allow time for it. West Sussex County Council wants at least 10 working days' notice and charges £266 for one month. Hampshire County Council wants a gap of ten clear working days, at £211.90 for the first two weeks. Build that wait into your plans if moss is already choking a valley and you want it dealt with soon.

Some roofs can be cleaned safely from roof ladders or a tower, and some cannot. Height, pitch, the covering and what is below the roof edge all decide it, as do the people walking past. Our guide to scaffolding for a roof repair sets out when each method fits, and the same reasoning applies to cleaning.

Labour follows the growth. The more moss there is to lift by hand, and the more awkward the roof, the more days the work takes. Checkatrade puts roofers at around £35 to £45 an hour or £280 to £360 a day, (table updated June 2026). Treat that as the middle of the national market for skilled roofing labour, not a price for any one roof.

A very small roof can still attract a call-out minimum, since driving to site, rigging ladders, protecting the ground below and clearing up take much the same time whatever the roof size. That is why a porch or a garage roof does not cost a tiny fraction of a house roof, even though there is far less to treat.

Tax on top

The standard rate of VAT is 20 per cent, according to GOV.UK. A quote of £800 before tax becomes £960 once VAT is added, and the gap is large enough to make one quote look much cheaper than another when it is not.

The same applies to anything found while the roof is being cleaned. If a cracked tile or a worn flashing turns up, the roofer should show you a photograph and say what the repair involves before any extra work begins. Our page on roofing costs sets out typical ranges for the other jobs a roof can need.

A very low price for a roof clean usually comes from a very short job. The usual shortcuts are a pressure wash with no treatment afterwards, moss left in the gutters and a quick walk across the slope with no look at the tiles. The roof looks cleaner for a while, then the growth returns, and the next bill arrives sooner than it should.

The method matters more than first appears. High-pressure water is quick, and it can also lift the surface of tiles and push water under them, which is why a whole guide of ours looks at why pressure washing a roof can do more harm than good. If a price is far below the others, ask what method is being used, because the answer often explains the figure.

Callers at the door

Unsolicited callers who say your roof is covered in moss and offer to clear it that afternoon deserve caution. You are entitled to a written quote, time to think and the chance to ask for a second opinion. A contract agreed at your home can be cancelled within 14 days, and a trader who wants to start inside that period should ask you to confirm it in writing. The law also expects a service to be carried out with reasonable care and skill, which is a fair test for any roof clean.

Never pay in full in advance for a job you cannot yet see. A roofer who is confident in the work is happy to put the method and the price on paper first, and to wait for payment until the roof is finished and you have looked at it.

Ask, too, who will actually be on your roof. A name and a phone number you can call after the job is a better sign than a van that has moved on by the evening.

A good quote for a roof clean is short and specific. It says which roof is being cleaned, how the growth is being removed, what is applied afterwards and whether the gutters are included. It gives one total price, says whether VAT and any access equipment are included, and says what happens if the roofer finds a repair that cannot wait.

• The method: hand removal, low-pressure washing, or both, and why.
• The treatment: what is applied to the tiles and when.
• The gutters and downpipes: cleared or left alone.
• The waste: bagged, taken away and not left in your garden.
• Access: ladders, tower or scaffold, and who arranges any licence.

We go up, photograph the roof and report back on what we found before any figure is mentioned: clean it, repair it first, or accept that the tiles are nearly spent. Our written quote comes after that and gives a single total that we think is good and fair. The photographs stay with you, so you can set what each roofer says they saw against the roof itself, and a vague answer soon shows.

Wildlife and the weather

Bats are protected by law, and so are birds' nests that are in use, so a roofer who comes across either should stop work and tell you. Cleaning is also best planned around the weather, since wet slopes are slippery and treatment needs a dry spell to be applied properly. For the other side of the sum, read our guide on whether getting your roof cleaned is worth it, and our roof cleaning and moss removal page explains the work we do.