OT snow on house roof

What are the thoughts of you YT folks concerning snow on roofs?

Best to leave it there for natural melting?

or

Shovel or brush it off as best you can?

It's about a foot deep on our roof and I spent many hours today shoveling and hope to finish it tomorrow. I'm concerned about the weight it places on the roof. It has also built up an ice dam over the gutters and the soffit areas.

We don't get that much snow around here but if we did I wouldn't let it get so deep that it would cave the roof in. I'd get it off of there. Better to be safe than sorry.

Better get a roof rake and pull it off or the dam will hold enough water back for it to go up over the tops of the shingles.

Ice damming can be a real problem. I finally put de-icing cables on our roof because of ice dams.

You can cut through an ice dam by filling a nylon stocking with ice melter (NOT rock salt) and throwing the tube across the dam. The important thing is to cut a drain through the dam so water can't back up under your shingles.

It ain't going to cave in. Rafters on shed every 8 ft. and they don't cave in. Rafters on house every 16". You do the math. Ocasionally you hear about a shed going down from snow load but I have never heard of a house going down. No sense doing more work then you have to. Now the ice dam is another story. Water can backup and damage inside ceiling and can bring down gutters but I really don't know what you can do about it at this point.

a FOOT? around here I dont worry until over 3 feet. You better look at your structure if your scared of a foot, if its that bad ya pull some off.

wouldnt think 1 foot would be a concern, here in mountains of WV once reaches 2 1/2 to 3 feet some people start removing. Ice dams are another problem, if roof is 4/12 or less pitch and you have short overhang they can cause water to back up under edges of first couple of courses of shingles and cause water stains in ceiling and walls around edges. Mark

I got a call yeasterday afternoon, from a good customer. One shed every truss is busted, another shed one rafter busted. We got the snow off them and a couple others, now we are gambeling on the rest in hopes of warm weather.

We use 8 HP walk behind blowers with rubber tracks, you can control the depth much better that one with wheels. On metal roofs, you give it some dings once in a while, but the effort it saves seems to over play any harm done.

One building was built 1962, the other 1972, and he has never shoveled snow off before. The deepest was a touch over 3 ft, the rest averaged 22 inches, but it had gotten a freezing rain on them after the snow.

A coment was made that rafter spacing is 16 inches on center compared to 8 ft on center on a pole building. Please don't think for a second that they are the same rafters, some are made for 20 ft spacings, others are 12 inches on center--that doesn't mean the roof will hold the load. The design, and engeneering is totaly the same principle, but the larger the spacing, the stronger the rafter, do the math.

As said, houses are intended to have a safer load usualy, and comercial is far higher than a ag building.

As long as you don't tear up the shingles, you can get rid of alot of weight in one hour.

I have helped clean up many buildings that went down, and I will make it clear, that it isn't a job where the snow is one place, the lumber another, because it is mixed up real good.

I should add, that the building built in 1971 was a cattle shed, and no insulation. The exposure to high humidity at times, has taken it's toll on the plywood gussets.

I spent most of today on 2 house roofs.

Ours, terrible ice dam, chopping on it with a hatchet from a ladder.

And both ours and my aunts, with a roof rake pulling the lower 2 feet or so of snow off. Stayed on the ground for that.

I figure getting the bottom 2-3 feet off will do fine, it opens up the roof for sun (if we get any ever!) and take most of the weight off the roof. Don't need to do the whole roof.

I got a machine shed that is very shallow sloped, it was a shed that dad moved onto the place when he was young, then added on a long lean to. That one I have to shovel off every few years, so far this year the winds haven't hit it just right, so it's not too bad. Yet.

We sure are getting our snow this year, and early in the season. I hear of sheds over Waseca/ Rochester way going down already.

Snowing now, and they talk about a big one coming in 7-8 days.... Oy.

--->Paul

To Iowa NE: I can see where plywood gussets would, over time, deteriorate. My 2 x 6 trusses have 2 x 6 gussets, but I was worried about the nails letting go with a lot of weight on the roof. So I fastened 5/16" bolts to strengthen the gussets. Should be a lot sturdier now---

I have 2 words for you that save a lot of time.........."Roof Rake"

I bought one 6 years ago or so and it works wonders, saves time, vs. getting up there with a shovel and a step ladder...Which sucks.

I am in Central NY , south of the "snow belt" but we have hade 75" of snow here so far, most of it in a 2 week period. After the first week and about 48" total snowfall I spent a good part of 12/11 getting snow off the roofs where it was the deepest as the weatherman promised a warm day 12/12 and 3/4" of rain. That amount of rain in 2-4" of snow could mean trouble.2 problems usually come from a lot of snow on a roof- too much weight - with risk of damage/collapse, or -usually only a problem in a heated building, ice dam forming along the eaves, which will stop water from running off the roof and can cause it to back up under the shingles and cause leaks . Cleaning snow off 1-2" of eaves usually will help prevent ice dams, getting deep snow off the roof down may be necessary to prevent damage from excessive weight. Around here 1-2" of snow on a roof is not usually a problem weight wise, but the wind often lays alot of snow on one side (usually east side) of a building . Last storm of last winter we had 30" of heavy snow but the back of my folk"s house was 4-5" deep where the front only showed a foot or so, all due to wind.

If I remember right, we built these rafters, and if so, we glued the gussests, and used a nail gun to spray nails into the plywood.

I have repaired alot of buildings that had metal gussets in a non attic type building. Rust wins over often in five years, and we replace them with plywood gussets.

Now I have to wonder if it is fool proof. We have also on several ocassions used paintable calk, and painted the metal gussets.

One has to almost laugh at the old farm houses and barns that are standing after a tornado or snow storm. And in the same yard, the new ---better designed, and totaly enginered buildings are totaled.

It all depends on your location and the building code there for rafters with reference to snow load. If you live in a location that generally does not get much snow but you now have more than normal, you should be concerned with removing it as the roof structure may not be designed to hold that much extra weight. Here where I live in Canada, we don't worry too much unless we have had a lot of very heavy snow because most roof structures can handle it.