A roofing crew comes off a job with laundry that does not behave like anything else. Tar on the cuffs, asphalt granules worked into every seam, sealant on gloves and a shirt that has been soaked and dried on the body three times since morning. None of it responds to a normal wash, and some of it will ruin the rest of the load.
Asphalt is the whole problem
Everything else about roofing laundry is manageable. Asphalt is what makes it a category of its own.
Tar and bitumen are not water soluble and never will be. No detergent dissolves them and no amount of agitation lifts them, because they are not sitting on top of the fiber. They have flowed into it and set.
They also soften with heat and harden with cold, which is the single most useful thing to know about them. A mark that is rock hard in a cold garage turns tacky and spreadable in a warm drum.
That is why the worst thing you can do with tar on cotton is put it straight into a hot wash. You take one small hard spot and turn it into a soft smear across half a shirt.
Granules, grit and what they do inside a drum
Shingle granules are crushed mineral, and they end up everywhere. Pockets, cuffs, boot tops, the inside of knee pads, the seams of everything.
They are heavy and abrasive, and unlike dust they do not float. They sink, they sit at the bottom of the drum, and they grind against fabric for the whole cycle.
That grinding is a real cause of wear. Clothes off a roof rarely fail because of washing. They fail because they were washed with a fistful of mineral still in the pockets.
Turn everything out and shake it hard before it goes near a machine. Two minutes of that saves the seams, and it saves the machine as well.
Knee pads and tool belts deserve their own mention here, because they hold more mineral than anything else on a person and almost nobody empties them. Anything with a pocket, a pouch or a padded panel is storing granules, and those granules will come out somewhere. Better on the ground outside than in the drum with the shirts.
Why a roofing crew load belongs on its own
There is no version of this where roofing clothes go in with household laundry and everyone is happy afterwards.
Tar transfers. A tacky spot on one knee will mark three other garments in the same drum, and those secondary marks are worse than the original because they are thin, spread out and everywhere at once.
Granules transfer too. They come out of one pair of pants and settle into the pockets and cuffs of whatever else happened to be in the load.
Keep a separate bag from the truck to the machine. It is the simplest rule in the trade and it is the one most often broken at the end of a long week.
Solvents, and why they stay outside the machine
The usual advice for tar involves a solvent, and used carefully on a small spot that does work.
What matters is that the solvent is out of the garment before the garment goes into a washer. Petroleum solvent and a warm drum are a combination worth taking seriously rather than shrugging at.
Work the spot outside, on a bench, with a cloth underneath to catch what comes through. Then wash that garment on its own, in warm water, with a full detergent dose, and rinse twice before it joins anything else.
Anything that still smells of solvent is not ready. Air it and wash it again rather than putting it in a dryer and hoping.
Heat, sweat and what a deck does to a shirt
A roof deck runs far hotter than the air around it. A crew on dark shingles in summer is working in the hottest place on the whole site by a wide margin.
That makes sweat a constant, and sweat means salt in the weave and body oil in the fiber. Both build up faster than a cold wash takes them away.
Salt crystals cut at cotton from inside the weave. It is why collars and shoulder seams on roofing shirts go thin long before anything actually tears.
Warm water and an extra rinse are the answer, and they matter more here than on almost any other trade’s clothing.
The other thing deck heat does is bake in whatever is already on the fabric. A spot of sealant that would wipe off a cool sleeve is set solid after an afternoon on a black roof, which is why the marks from a hot week are so much harder to move than the marks from a cool one.
Washing and drying without setting anything
Warm rather than hot for the first wash, because hot softens tar and lets it travel.
Load loose. The granules and grit coming off the fabric need water volume to be carried away, and a packed drum gives them nowhere to go except back into the cloth.
Check every garment in daylight before it goes in the dryer. Heat sets whatever did not come out, and a tar mark that has survived a dryer is with that garment permanently.
Dry on moderate heat. Synthetic work shirts in particular do not forgive the highest setting, and a melted patch on a sleeve is the end of that shirt.
If a garment is borderline, hang it instead. Air drying asks nothing but time, it keeps every option open for a second attempt at a mark, and it is the difference between a shirt you can still work on and one that is finished.
Common questions about roofing crew
How should a roofing crew get tar out of work clothes?
Treat the spot before it ever sees water. Chill it so it goes hard, lift off whatever breaks away, then work the rest with a solvent on a bench outdoors. Only after that does the garment go into a warm wash on its own with two rinses.
Why does a small tar spot turn into a wide smear after washing?
Heat. Tar softens as the water warms, and once soft it spreads with the motion of the drum. Washing warm rather than hot, and dealing with the spot first, is what prevents it.
Do shingle granules damage a washing machine?
They are heavy mineral and they settle rather than float, so they do the drum no favors and they do the clothes rather less. Emptying pockets and shaking everything out first handles most of it.
Is it worth washing clothes that already have tar on them?
Usually yes for the sake of the whole garment, even when the mark itself stays. The thing to decide early is whether that pair of pants is now a work only pair, because most tar marks are there for good.
The Lansing part
Michigan roofing laundry changes character completely between seasons, and the wash has to change with it.
Summer is the tar season. Warm shingles are soft shingles, and soft asphalt gets onto clothing far more readily than cold asphalt does. Summer loads arrive with more marks and more sweat at the same time.
Winter reverses it. Cold makes asphalt brittle so less of it transfers, but the grit load climbs, because everything on the ground is salt and sand and all of it comes up the ladder on boots.
Snow and freeze thaw also mean clothing arrives genuinely wet rather than damp. Wet cotton left bagged in a warm truck goes sour quickly, and that smell takes a long cycle with plenty of water to get back out.
Spring rain puts fine silt into everything. It is the least dramatic soil of the year and the one that most needs water volume rather than a heavier dose of detergent.
Where a roofing load belongs
Clothes off a roof need their own drum, plenty of water and room to move, which is more than a home washer has to give.
The machines at our self-service laundry on South Cedar Street hold the water volume and turn the drum size that heavy, grit loaded work clothing needs, so the mineral ends up down the drain rather than back in the seams.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Nou wash-dry-fold service covers the everyday laundry.
For general guidance, The American Cleaning Institute publishes a fabric care guide that is a useful cross-check.
The short version
Short version. A roofing crew generates laundry with two problems nothing else has. Asphalt, which is not water soluble, softens with heat and smears if it goes into a hot wash, and mineral granules, which are heavy, abrasive and hiding in every pocket and cuff. Empty and shake everything before it goes in. Treat tar cold and outside the machine, and keep solvent out of the drum entirely. Wash on its own, warm rather than hot, in a loose load with plenty of water and two rinses. Check in daylight before drying, because heat sets whatever is left, then dry on moderate heat.
WaveMAX Lansing is at 4929 S Cedar St, easy to reach from Lansing and the surrounding area. If you have a load that will not fit at home, call us at 517-300-9283.