I want to paint my fibercement roof to make my house cooler. It has a lot of lichen that gives it a black color. I have both tried painting over the lichen and scrub it with a wire brush. I'm not convinced which method is best.
The part I painted over looks like shit and all patchy, though that just may be my shitty technique with the roller, I did notice a lot of dust getting stuck in the roller. When I scrubbed with the wire brush I noticed the lichen was well planted on the surface, almost making an impermeable film. Scrubbing generated a lot of dust which I had to wash with a pressure nozzle, quite labor intensive.
Is the extra effort worth it at all? I don't know if the fibercement is made of asbestos, It's some Eureka brand, built in 1989. Should I just paint over the lichen and call it a day?
if you're worried about it containing asbestos, scrubbing it to produce friable dust is about the worst thing that you could do.
Eh. I'm kinda betting it doesn't, and I already scrubbed half of the roof. What about paint, will it reflect light better, will it stick better or something by removing the lichen or is the advantage negligible?
you used a mask right?
And of course I used a mask, I got a box of N95 ones, they're finally getting cheaper after the big coof.
Too bad if it were asbestos I'd got that shit all over my skin anyways.
Why not pressure wash it?
How to tell the difference between fibrecement and asbestos?
>painting over the lichen
Consider spraying it with diluted bleach.
Use a pressure washer and a respirator if you want to prep the surface for painting. Doubt paint will do much of anything to cool the roof down.
Don't know where to get that equipment, it probably cheaper to just scrub.
I wondered that too, probably would need to look under the microscope. I don't have a circular saw either as to cut a sample.
Anyways, In the end I said frick it and painted over the lichen, a lot of shit stuck to the roller but was good enough. By the time the lichen does damage, if any at all, I'd best replace the whole roof or sell the house.
No idea where you're located, but if you have any tool/hardware stores near you you can probably rent one. There also exist equipment rental companies that will rent larger pressure washers in addition to trucks and construction equipment.
I would have just used some thick white cu... i mean silicone paint. it's so thick you would hardly notice any difference in texture or color.
it's expensive but you can get shit that has a lifetime warranty.
*pressure wash the whole roof before applying