Dangerous Mass Of Snow On My Roof And What Am I Supposed To Do With It
People (mostly in areas with mild winters) often underestimate the power of snow and ice mass that can accumulate on the roof. This is a wrong and very irresponsible approach (naughty, naughty homeowners!).
Now seriously. Suddenly released mass of frozen snow has a considerable weight. If it falls down of 25 ft height, itīll seriously injure or even kill all what it hits. Pets, children, adults.
Your roof should not only protect your property but also your health and health of your relatives and properly designed
snow retention system is something your roof definitely needs unless you live in hot Kongo.
Of course itīs better if you hire a professional roofer experienced in roof snow retention systems application (that means - I really do not advice you do it yourself), but Iīm sure thereīs lot of handy DIY homeowners that have succeeded to do this job themselves especially
on standing seam roofs or roofs with asphalt or slate shingles itīs not that difficult.
Little theory. Thereīs couple of snow retention systems available. Whatever the smart snow retention system manufacturers call them, you should know they are generally the same (or they work generally the same way).
All particular snow retention systems try:
- to keep as much snow as possible for as long time as possible on the roof;
- at the moment it is no longer possible to keep the snow on the roof, they should cut the rest of the snow mass to as small blocks of snow as possible. Small blocks of snow are not that dangerous if they slide off the roof. First we have the so called
snow guards. The snow guards are manufactured in two basic variants. First looks like the horizontal railing. These guards are applied in several lines (2 or 3 guard lines on each gable). This type of guard is not bad when used with steep roofs but they do not work efficiently on low slope roofs as they can cause the overload of snow mass on certain parts of the roof.
For the lower slopes thereīs another roof snow guard variant, which is just a system of pieces of metal chequerwise fastened onto the whole roof surface.
As for
the snow brackets, the snow bracket is (surprise!) a bracket shaped piece of steel
nailed onto the roof. You can place them in horizontal line and join them with pipes or wires (thereīs huge number of brackets available; L-shaped, triangle shaped, etc...) this way you produce a kind of horizontal guard; or you can use them as the second guard type and mount them chequerwise on the whole roof surface. In this case you need considerable number of brackets, but they hold the frozen snow mass better than the railing-like guards and they cause no overloads.
If you decided to protect your family from the 5 tons iceblocks falling from your roof, start with the snow guards and/or snow brackets. The snow guard manufacturers tell you how to do that, how much guards/brackets you need for your roof, what should be their position or pitch.
The other roof snow retention system you should apply on your roof are the roof snow fences. Their role is not to cut the snow or ice mass horizontally, but (1st) keep the snow mass on the roof (the real snow retention) and later when the snow melts and it is no longer possible to keep it on the roof, to cut it vertically again producing just small, not dangerous pieces of snow falling from the roof.
Roof (snow) fences are usually applied at the gable end of the roof (above the gutters). At the snow melting spring time they finish their work and the above mentioned small snow pieces are not falling off the roof but they are spouted down the gutters without affecting your familyīs lifes.
