Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • Lots of moss on lots of tarmac
  • Houns
    Full Member

    I have approx. 3 km of roads at work where moss is taking over. In an ideal world I’d leave it, however residents would complain and there’s an H&S risk of people slipping on it.

    I’ve sprayed affected areas with iron sulphate numerous times, it turns the moss black for about a week then it just turns green again. I’ve gone from the recommended mix of 500 g per 10 litres to double strength, no joy.

    I’ve tried using a nylon and wire brush head attachments on my brushcutters, these are fine for small patches but useless for such large areas that I have. It’s really persistent moss that sits in all the cracks of the tarmac, if it was a nice thick mat of moss it’d be easy to remove.

    So how do I get rid of it? Would hiring in a proper big road sweeper even touch it? I don’t want to really use any nasty chemicals as a river flows through our land. Ideas please…

    smokey_jo
    Full Member

    Once you’ve killed it with sulphate you need to remove it, then repeat until you get to the point you can just spray it every now and again.

    Once it’s black get a road sweeper on it the first time, you might reduce it to patches that are manageable manually after that.

    You will have more joy in drier conditions.

    fazzini
    Full Member

    So how do I get rid of it?

    Flamethrower?

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    Houns
    Full Member

    Thanks, just confirms what I was thinking, I need to have a chat with my Director to hire in a sweeper

    mashr
    Full Member

    As you’re keen to avoid chemicals – I wonder if Mo Bacter would work as an alternative? I’ve certainly seen it doing wonders on lawns, but not sure about tarmac

    midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    Move the tarmac to a warm dry climate with direct sun. It should clear up in a few days.

    Houns
    Full Member

    Scrap the road sweep hire idea, time to hire a planer!

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    Move the tarmac to a warm dry climate with direct sun. It should clear up in a few days

    Thats a stupid and expensive solution, just put a big tent over the top of it.

    Or a bigger version of this?

    Saccades
    Free Member

    Potassium Salt.

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Or a bigger version of this?

    Pointless…. It will come straight back.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    Flamethrower will do it – my dad used to have one for this sort of purpose

    but with your record?  the only way it could get worse is if you subcontract to WCA 🙂

    Waderider
    Free Member

    If the road is seeing that little traffic surely you just could set a low speed limit? Also try and reduce shade and allow air at the road by clearing back vegetation and trees. In my forestry job we just wait until the moss is so thick it’s feasible to scrape it off as a mat, using an excavator with a tilting bucket. Obviously though that’s a water bound rather than a tar bound road. I imagine annual use of a road sweeper is going to be a damn sight better than getting one in once it gets bad. For 3km of road you might need to think about where you are disposing of it.

    Also don’t see the point in treating then removing when the second step achieves the end result.

    kayak23
    Full Member

    Well, the saying goes, ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss’ therefore you need somehow to make the tarmac roll somewhat.

    topper
    Full Member

    I would remove tree cover as much as possible then get a road sweeper in I guess it’s not heavily trafficked.

    You mention it could be a H&S issue. Is there no adjacent footway for peds?

    I used to have a similar issue on areas of York stone footways in a West London Borough. We re-textured the existing stuff and laid new stone with a sand blasted finish.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Sodium Percarbonate (aka vanish, oxyclear, etc) except you can buy it neat as a bulk powder. You apply it dry so you’ll need to figure that out (gritter/spreader + some dry sand to dilute it to the right spreading?).

    Most iron sulphate and pelargonic acid based moss killers don’t kill the spores so unless you get every last bit of it then it’ll be back.

    kelvin
    Full Member

    Easy to remove. Are you happy to do the same every two years?

    bikesandboots
    Full Member

    Hard stiff brushing with wide bucket brush on a tractor or telehandler. Not sure how much pressure a road sweeper can put on, but with these the operator has full control.

    jordie
    Free Member

    This stuff really works, my driveway was pretty green with moss. It kills it really quickly then it just disappeared over the summer.

    https://buygreenterminator.co.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAiAlfqOBhAeEiwAYi43F1VW4yc938YniT5jlcib45mov_WyL3JodAIFvkJV-iYUdTf8ADvK0RoCFYUQAvD_BwE

Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)

The topic ‘Lots of moss on lots of tarmac’ is closed to new replies.