Moss buildup prevention

Hi, I'm having problems with moss growing on the roof tiles and rolling into the gutter blocking the drainage downpipe causing the water to overflow out of the gutter.
Are there any crafty tricks to prevent it growing?
Thanks

You can put a wire cage in the top of any downpipes to prevent blockage, but difficult to prevent growth. Spraying the roof with jeyes fluid would work but impractical.

SteveP5B, hi

An expensive way is to have a look at Copper Ridge? a system where a copper sheet material is applied over the top of your Ridge tiles.

Why copper? rain is very, very slightly acidic, when the rain hits the copper ridge it produces copper sulfate, that kills Moss [as does copper sulfate applied to a lawn?]

In general even stringing a bare Copper wire across the width of the tiles will assist in producing copper sulfate and the moss will die, but because the wire is smaller in surface area that a copper ridge, you will need several wires across to roof to provide protection against the Moss Infestation.

Sending someone on-to the roof with a power washer will work for this year but NOT next year??

One draw back of a copper ridge, OK I have only seen three in 15 years is that in a really good storm the copper ridge can and does cause the ridge iles to be blown off the roof, because the Copper ridge is open at the sides to wind flow.

Ken.

Very interesting replies, thank you , I'll try a small area with copper strip/flashing first and see what happens, Do things begin to happen straight away or does it take years to work ?

SteveP5B, Hi again.

From what I have seen on numerous of the Expensive All singing all dancing "Copper Ridge" the results, no Moss, are going to happen within the Moss growing Season.

As for using Copper Wire, or Copper tape as you suggest will I believe halt the moss growth and i think within the same time frames, however? the effectiveness of a shall we say single stranded Copper wire as opposed to a "Copper Ridge" the efficacy will be shall we say slower, simply because the area of Copper exposed to the Acid rain is much less that a "Copper Ridge" that will expose an area of about 100.mm to 150.mm of Copper to the rain on each side of the ridge, rather than a strand of wire, obviously a Copper tape, or indeed two or three copper tapes strung at a position just below the ridge will produce the desired effect.

As an aside, you will need to fix the wire or tape at frequent intervals, this to prevent the wire /tape from rattling in a gale, the action of wind and movement will cause the tape to become fragile, brittle and cause failure because of metal fatigue.

Ken.