Snow and roof collapse

In 78 we had a blizzard and a strong wind out of the north causing drifting. Many roofs collapsed, pole barns, houses, flat roofs, because of the snow.

New is reporting people in Boston are shoveling snow off roofs.

Has anyone on YT had a roof problem because of all the snow?

my neighbors tool shed just came down a few days ago from the snow load. it was an old shed that needed some work, but he kept putting it off. the zero turn mower, 4 wheeler, tools , welder and torch were in there. dunno what survived yet.

10-15 years ago we had a LOT of snow one year then got rain on top of it. I took my old lightweight snow thrower up on the garage roof. It worked but beat up the shingles a little. Then went to Mom's with my brother and shoveled her roof. Have to be careful with large spans.

I think in 98. One neighbors barn went down. My brothers was bad. Wide flat span local fire dept. even came and helped. We put the snowblower on the roof as well. I lived in a trailer at the time. It was sagging in pretty bad.

For a change we have had very little snow up here on MN this year.

It is raining and 25 degrees out right now, that is typically a bad deal here, as snow and ice and wind drifting snow will layer up and put the weight on a roof. But this year no snow, so not a big deal.

Maybe every 10 years we get conditions that take down the weakest buildings around here.

I have one roof, shallow slope, low old machine shed, SE winds will dump 3 feet of snow on it, have to shovel it off about that often.

Weight and time combine to create the stress that takes a roof down. Deep snow with a freak rainfall is the worst around here.

Paul

In Minnesota during December of 2010 we had a lot of roofs collapse, including the Metrodome (Vikings stadium) roof on Dec 12th.

Many pole barn roofs collapsed, turns out many that were built in the 80's had not been engineered to support local snow loads, especially if they came from one of the mega box stores of the time. A friend had one go down and his insurance refused to cover it due to no snow load rating on the roof structure, he had no idea there was such an exclusion on his policy nor that the shed had no snow load rating since it was there when he purchased the property.

Had another guy tell me he had went inside his pole shed to get a snow shovel, just as he closed the walk door on his way out the roof collapsed!

In 2002 my shop collapsed from an accumulation of 3" of sleet on it. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw what had accumulated and went to get dressed to go out and prop wood under the roof and while I was putting my shoes on I heard it fall. Another 5 minutes and I would have been in the building.

I knew I was pushing the limits with the wood framing on the building but how often do you get that much snow or ice in the Dallas area. If it had happened in the day time I could have re-enforced the rood.

Hi, in 1957 wehad a pole hay barn built with old telephone poles
About 16 ft high. It had cedar shakes 5 ft long for roofing. We
got 5 ft of snow real fast. It pushed the poles right down so
the roof was sitting on the hay. Very uneven. We had to rebuild. I was 12 yr old. Ed wil

Yes, late winter of '09, we lost a good 1/3+ of an 80'x125' barn. It was the better end of this older barn, as one end had some issues, that unfortunately, and after the person, (my father) calling the shots wast told repeatedly by me, this was on the horizon. It was insured and we did make it whole again. Funny how the worse end stayed up and the other side went down. Winter of '10-'11, that same end was starting to make some noise, so it and most of the roof was cleared and I did fear eminent collapse as I was under it shoring up a sagging area. The 50'-0" common trusses were reinforced and repaired, it held, but they must clear it if too much loads up, hard to say how many cycles of that it would tolerate. It has since been repaired, but heavy wet snow accumulations, must be cleared. Myself and 2 others rebuilt the collapsed section and given the time of year and what we had to work with, it was without a doubt some of the most miserable work to perform. I will never do any framing like that in the winter again. One of the other 2 on the job saw it fit to step on my toes a bit over me working my part time job which started at 5:30-6:00am, not being able to be there til 9am, and that did not work out well for him one day after he ran his mouth, it could have been the same for me if I had not come to my senses. Long days make for short fuses. He was not a bad sort, but for some reason he felt it necessary to jump on my case. He still works for us in retirement actually or did before a triple bypass, trustworthy too, just that rotten work we were doing, just brings the best out in everyone LOL ! I think that was the most recent and memorable kind of work I can honestly say I hated with a passion, mostly due to the cold temps, snow held off that year, just all the extra layers of clothing, working up high, moisture laden frozen lumber, getting one perlin in place was a job in itself given the conditions and how this old barn was. I was thoroughly annoyed with that guy. I had to take a few days off with a back problem, as I could not walk, had been to the doctor, X-rays, pain and anti-inflammatory meds etc. When I came, back they had taken over the job, and I should have taken it right back, that one ignorant jerk (at the time-see above) caused a lot of extra work, as I had told them to level up the skirts before setting trusses, take some shots with an instrument, do something, string line, just get it close if anything, I mean the barn had issues, don't have to be perfect, but not 1"-2" off like it was. Well I let the slack out too much by doing that and I knew better. Many of the perlins needed to be pried up and shimmed up before the tin went on. I think my closing statement on that job was "never again". I have no tolerance for ignorance on a job site, no patience for it at all actually, so barring getting into it with my dad and this guy over this aging barn (given how this co-worker was at the time)I just let it go. Doing so, just extended our misery up on that framing, and it cost him in labor. I particularly, do not work like that, so it crossed a grain, as that money was needed elsewhere. All of it because of the darned snow LOL !!!!! I saw a lot of older barns and recall a newer dairy barn that collapsed winter of '10-'11 in this area. Heavy snow accumulations will weed out any weak structures at some point.

December 1st of 06 we had a 50x640 turkey barn collapse from snow and ice. It had about 9000 turkeys in it at the time 1 week from market weighing around 38 lbs. The middle came down but the sides stayed somewhat up so we saved all but around 1700. We rebuild it and reinforced the 50x360 that stayed standing. My uncle had the same set up and lost both barns and just quit the turkey business after that

My Lester building has a 50 year guarantee.
Central Ohio.

I have a 32'x32' pole building I house 6 of the
John Deeres we use on the farm for the winter.
2 of them get used to plow, while the rest sleep
in hibernation. My Place is down in a valley out
of the wind & secluded with hemlock trees.
I shoveled 31" off the backside where the sun
never hits & from 27" down to 22" on the other
side. I did this on Saturday, by cutting 16"
squares out threw the 6 layers of crust &
sliding each square off the roof... I am So
Freaking glad it's off the roof.

A good thing to be aware of and to check for is that trussed roofs will hold a lot more of a balanced load than a load on one side. for instance if you get a drift of say four feet on one side of a roof, and just a few inches on the other side, it is going to be in much greater danger of collapse than say three feet on both sides.

My Lester's building is built with 6x8 posts, double trusses, yes there double and 2x6 purlins with joist hangers, I don't even look.

Here in my part of sunny California, the county requires an 85 Lbs per sq ft snow load. That Sierra cement is wet and heavy, and really adds to the price of a Butler building.

www.MinnSNOWta.com Roof Razor works faster and easier than a standard roof rake or shoveling off a roof.

In the blizzard of 78, the wind drifted all my snow
to one side of roof, about 4 ft, nothing on the
other. My house was talking. I went the on roof.
Sat on my butt, and pushed the snow off.

How did the snow remove just the metal and not damage the wood? Looks more like wind damage.

Why don't they put concrete in the hold, let it set up before putting the poles in the hole? My posts, my code, have to be 4 ft in the ground. But the weight of the barn rests on 4x6 posts. That doesn't make since to me.

After I put a 6 inch concrete floor in my barn, I nailed wood to the 3 sides of posts, resting wood on the concrete. Hopefully to help support post from sinking under weight.

LOL ! It was a pile of sticks where you see the end wall in the background and the truck crane ready for the next pick. I don't have any photos of that, not having been around when it happened. Some of the other tin did have wind or associated damage. To be honest the barn should have been demolished, but given the insurance, and the ability to make it whole again seemed best at the time. What you see is the completion of the framing and it being ready for the metal roof panels, well after we took off the remaining tin on the one end and wherever else etc.

The main factor here was that the late winter, wet snow accumulation, from a single weather event, it was clearly too much for this barely adequate framing. Common trusses spanning 50'-0" clear, 4'-0" on center spacing,(which is a delight to work with) and they were never braced since it was built, long before us. I think the moisture in there ruined the splice plates on the existing trusses, as there were many plywood replacement splice plates. All things considered, the weight of that snow caused a catastrophic failure, the trusses, in the condition they were, could not withstand the loading on them and likely buckled and created a domino effect.

Only problem I have had with snow and roofs is the greenhouse. The plastic is getting old, and the bays trap snow, causing the plastic to give way under the snow weight.The frame is strong enough to hold.

The insurance said to keep it heated to 50. Can't afford that. There's been days it get close to 80-90 inside, and the snow is still there. The plastic is heavy enough it insulates some, yet can't take a lot of weight from age.

Was told that a hoop frame greenhouse like ours would cost around half as much to build farther south (even just a few hundred miles). The frame would be built lighter with the less average snow.