Portland's Moss Problem, Solved at the Root
JNR Industries has been climbing Portland's steep, shaded composition roofs since 2010, killing moss at the root with an eco-friendly, US-made treatment that skips the zinc, bleach, and peroxide.
A Portland roof has Portland problems.
Portland doesn't have a moss problem so much as a math problem: eight months of rain a year, a tree canopy that still shades close to a third of the city, and thousands of roofs built low and wide under Douglas firs that were here before the subdivisions were. Put those three together and moss isn't an if, it's a when — usually inside two or three winters on a shaded composition roof.
JNR works out of Portland's east side, out past Happy Valley, which puts the company on the doorstep of the neighborhoods that take the worst of it. East of the Willamette is where 8 in 10 Portlanders live and where the tree cover thins out fastest in the sun — but on the streets that still run under mature fir canopy, in Mount Tabor, Laurelhurst, Eastmoreland, Woodstock, the moss doesn't care that the rest of the city is drying out. It just needs shade and rain, and Portland supplies both on a schedule.
The company has cleaned Presidential-style composition roofs built to look like cedar shake, brushed century-old roofs too fragile for a pressure washer, pulled bamboo out of gutters during a hail storm, and worked commercial jobs — 3-plexes, 4-plexes, condos — on steep tie-off pitches downtown and in the close-in neighborhoods. It's not one kind of roof or one kind of client. It's whatever Portland's housing stock throws at it, cleaned the same honest way every time.
Every service, dialed to Portland homes.
Roof Cleaning & Eco-friendly Moss Treatment
On Portland's shaded east-side streets, moss anchors into composition shingle grain within a season or two of fall-through-spring rain — JNR treats it out at the root instead of just knocking the green off the top.
Learn more »Gutter Cleaning & Repair
Portland's mature street trees mean gutters fill with more than leaves — crews have pulled everything from fir needles to bamboo out of NE Portland gutters mid-storm, and Rainflow guards keep SW Portland homeowners from doing that job themselves multiple times a year.
Learn more »Pressure Washing
Downtown 3-plexes, 4-plexes, and condos get the steep-pitch, tie-off treatment for siding and walkways; older Portland houses with soft, brittle shingles get a gentler non-pressure approach instead.
Learn more »Roof Repairs
Century-old roofs in inner Portland neighborhoods often can't take a standard cleaning method — JNR has switched techniques mid-job, even at a loss, rather than risk the roof, and repairs the small stuff (leaks, soft spots) before it becomes a full tear-off.
Learn more »Roof Maintenance Plan
A city with an official goal of keeping a third of itself under tree canopy isn't a one-and-done market — Portland roofs go back on a maintenance schedule so moss never gets the two-winter head start it needs to take hold again.
Learn more »Tree Trimming
The same Douglas firs that make Laurelhurst and Eastmoreland desirable are what keep their roofs in shade nine months a year — JNR treats the roof, not the tree, and never recommends topping a fir just to save a shingle.
Learn more »Proof — not promises.
★★★★★The poor guy probably had hypothermia by the time he was done with temperatures in the 30's and wet snow falling a good part of the day. What a worker! Kudos to Kevin!
— Customer email to JNR, January 2012
★★★★★When he started to work he quickly noted that the roof would not accept the low pressure cleaning he planned to use. We discussed options – and the one we opted for actually resulted in JNR making considerably less money, but the integrity of my roof was maintained… Honest, competent, trustworthy! And they even played with my puppy!
— Customer review, January 2017
★★★★★He said 'I originally called four companies but three called back and I only felt JNR really knew their stuff.'
— Customer comment, January 2014
DOCUMENTED JOBA Presidential composition-shingle roof — built to mimic the look of cedar shake — cleaned of moss and treated in Portland without damaging the shingles' shake-style texture.
— JNR job post, July 2012
Stories from the quadrants.
SW Portland
Bob in SW Portland used to clean his gutters out multiple times a year as they kept filling and overflowing. 'He said after I put the Rainflows on, he never had a problem all year,' JNR wrote of the fix. The same part of town has also handed JNR its share of heavy-moss roofs — including one job title that doubled as a hometown claim: 'the Happy Valley roof cleaners' at work on the city's southwest side.
NE Portland
A moss-removal job in NE Portland is on record with before-and-after photos of a roof gone green under tree cover. Nearby, a gutter-cleaning call during a hail storm turned up gutters packed with bamboo — a detail specific enough that JNR photographed it rather than just writing it up.
NW Portland
An old roof in NW Portland wasn't going to survive a standard pressure wash, so JNR used its non-pressure, roof-brushing method instead — gentler cleaning built for shingles too fragile for the hose.
Close enough to show up.
JNR works out of Portland's east side, based near Happy Valley — about 13 miles and 20 to 25 minutes from downtown, closer still to Mount Tabor, Woodstock, Lents, and the rest of inner and outer SE. That's the crew's home turf, not a service radius drawn on a map after the fact; the company has literally billed itself as the Happy Valley roof cleaners while working jobs across every quadrant of the city, from SW gutter guards to NE moss removal to NW roof-brushing on houses too old for a hose.
The treatment matters here.
Most of Portland's housing stock is composition shingle under mature Douglas fir — the exact combination that turns a routine cleaning into a chemical decision. JNR's treatment is eco-friendly and US-made, with no zinc, no bleach, and no peroxide, so it kills moss at the root without stripping granules, without runoff that a Portland homeowner has to worry about near a garden bed or a storm drain, and without any of it landing on the fir that's shading the roof in the first place. On a roof under an old-growth tree that isn't going anywhere, that's not a marketing angle — it's the only kind of treatment that can be used again next year, and the year after that.
Neighborhoods & areas served.
Asked by your neighbors.
Why does moss come back so fast on my Portland roof?
Rain and shade, in that order. Downtown Portland's 30-year normal is 44 inches of rain a year, with about 90% of it falling between October and May, and even with tree canopy down to under 30% citywide, the streets that still run under mature Douglas firs get almost none of the drying-out sun that keeps moss in check elsewhere. Shaded composition roofs in neighborhoods like Mount Tabor, Laurelhurst, and Eastmoreland are usually growing moss again within two winters of a cleaning if they're not on a maintenance schedule.
Do I need a permit for roof cleaning or moss treatment in Portland?
No. Cleaning, treating, or brushing moss off an existing roof is maintenance work, not construction, so it doesn't require a City of Portland building permit. Permits only come into play if the job turns into an actual repair or replacement.
What's with all the 'Presidential' style composition roofs around Portland?
It's a shingle style built to mimic cedar shake without the upkeep, and it's common across the city's east side. It cleans up fine with the right method, but an aggressive pressure wash can chew up the shingle's shake-style texture — JNR treats these with a soft-wash approach built for that specific shingle.
Which Portland neighborhoods do you actually work in?
All of them, but the heaviest concentration of work is on the east side — Mount Tabor, Laurelhurst, Eastmoreland, Woodstock, Sellwood-Moreland, Montavilla, Rose City Park, Irvington, Alameda, Hollywood, Foster-Powell, and Lents — plus jobs across SW, NE, and NW Portland, from Hillsdale and Multnomah Village to Alberta and the Northwest District.
What's actually in the moss treatment?
An eco-friendly, US-made product with no zinc, no bleach, and no peroxide. It's built to kill moss at the root rather than just bleach the green off the surface, so it doesn't leave a compound sitting on the roof, running off into a garden bed, or drifting onto the fir tree that's shading the house.
How fast can you get to my house if I'm on the east side?
Fastest of anywhere in the service area — JNR is based on Portland's east side near Happy Valley, about 13 miles and 20 to 25 minutes from downtown, and closer to most of the neighborhoods east of the river.
Get your free Portland roof inspection.
We answer every call. Photo-documented inspection, honest recommendation, no pressure — and if your roof doesn't need us yet, we'll tell you so.