Thread: Snow Loads...
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Old 02-21-2014, 11:18 AM   #16
DickR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MAXUM View Post
I only mention it cause with 3+ feet of rain saturated snow equals a significant load.
An inch of rain, totally retained by a snow pack on the roof, will add just five lb/sq.ft. of load. Of course, that could be the straw breaking the camel's back. Others are right that many of the older structures weren't built to anything resembling present code, which in Moultonborough allows for a 70 lb/sqft snow load. Yet these older structures survive year after year, many of which don't get visited during the winter at all.

Still, seeing a three-foot drift piled on the downwind side of the ridge on our cottage roof made me nervous enough that I went up the other day and spent an hour dumping the bulk of that load onto the ground. I left a couple inches of crusty stuff, and I didn't touch the windward side at all, as the load there was far less than where the turbulence of the wind going over the ridge drifts the snow just downwind of the ridge. After I unloaded the roof to a point of satisfaction, I remembered that I have a roof rake.

I haven't tried to move snow from the new house roof. That's just a few years old and built to present code, so I'm not worried.
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