Snow guards
 

Has Any body seen or had any experience with something like this type of snow guards ??

How do you folks Up north deal with snow and ice accumlation on metal roofs ??

Zippyt wants , no needs to know !!!



http://snoblox.com/index.php?l=page_...nobar_products

also

http://www.alaskanproductsonline.com/order.html

because we are getting this mess

Sorry dude, I've got a 12/12 pitch and heavy insulation so no ice on my roof.

Ice at the edge of your roof means there's a problem with the insulation. You don't want ice dams there - water backs up into your attic, and they're dangerous for anyone walking under the eaves.

In heavy snow areas we either pitch the roof steeply or shovel it regularly; sometimes both.

I've seen stuff like that over the doorway of some places. I don't see the need for it anywhere else. Just let the snow slide off and onto the ground. Nobody will be standing there. Besides, how often do you have this problem where you are?

I have no personal experience as our roof is regular asphalt shingles.

This what sprang to my mind when I read t he thread title:

http://i.newsarama.com/images/doctor...he-snowmen.jpg

I've only watched a little bit of your video zip. Here's what's happening on your roof though. Snow falls on the whole roof. Since there's a slope, anything on the roof will move from the peak to the eave, snow and liquid water alike. Since the snow moves more slowly, it's not so much of a problem. However, your roof is not equally warm. This is KEY.

The area of your roof near the peak is warmer, but at the eaves, especially near the area of the roof that does not have house under it, the roof is much colder. What happens is when it gets just warm enough to melt over the greater area of the roof, but still cold outside, the snow melts, now liquid water drains down your roof toward your eave where it is much colder (no warm cozy house/attic heating it from beneath). Cold but liquid water hits cold roof, it freezes. Now you have ice at the eaves. This process continues to repeat until the ice dam gets too heavy to stay on the roof and it falls off, hopefully safely, but not always, or it just gets warm enough to melt everything. Either way, having that much water in that location on your roof is a bad idea.

the two products I saw in your links seemed to talk about mitigating this process, but were PRIMARILY concerned with preventing an avalanche of the snow from the peak to the eave by giving the snow some traction, either with one bar at the bottom or with several bars from eave to peak. The pics you show DO have some avalanche risk, but I see a bigger risk from the ice dam. You need to get that ice off of there before you have a big-GER problem, and maybe a *serious* injury.

Clearly no product you see on the internet or whereever will help you NOW, you have snow and ice on your roof NOW. This can't help you now. These products are to be installed on a clear roof, and work on subsequent winter accumulations. I'd work on getting that ice off. Hammers, picks, heat, something.

In Alaska, when I worked for an outfit that had hotels up there, ice dams on standing seam metal roofs were a real known hazard. I know that for major entryways, the roof was built in a different way so that traffic patterns didn't intersect with the low water point/ice dam location. You don't have that option, you walk right under that nearly horizontal gutter to get to your front door. Another option was to put strip heaters over areas where ice dams were a hazard, kind of like the pipe heaters you get in a strip and wind around a pipe, y'know. That COULD BE a potential help to keep an ice dam from forming in a very specific place, like in front of the walkways. I imagine you could even install this now, after beating that ice away, of course.

I'll keep thinking about this, but you really need to get that ice off of the gutters. That shit is heavy, you'll be LUCKY if the worst that happens is that it tears the gutters off your house.

I don't think Zip's pictures look like an ice dam problem. Looks to me like the entire roof sheet is slowly migrating down the roof. Ice dams typically build up huge hunks of ice at the eaves, then grow big icicles, not extend/curl out from the edge. :confused:

So it's a goddamn glacier, then?

Oh by the way it's going to be 44 degrees here tomorrow.

Centigrade.

Yeah but that heat brings out the venomous snakes and Huge Spiders ;)

At first I was all, like, how does she know that kind of stuff? Then I was all, like, Oh yeah, she grew up in, like, Baffin Bay or something.


Yeah, Zippy, if you plan on getting snowed on a lot down there because of global warming changing the climate and shit, you're gonna need to insulate the crap out of your attic. Remember to vent it too. You could also let it be a "Cold" attic and just insulate the attic floor/ living area ceiling.

Where we are, 1) no one in their right mind has gutters because the snow and ice just rip them off, and 2) Houses that are well insulated or have cold attics have snow piled up on them without icicles.

You might want to invest in some sled dogs though, I bet Ortho can hook you up.

Our roof is vented well , ridge vent ( full length at the top )and a louver at both ends , and soffette vents as well
i dont think we are getting ice damns ,
the snow collects and falls off in a day or 2 , nothing seems to stay any longer than that ,
it just ALL goes at once , one big WHHHOOOOMMMPPPP !!!
Im afraid one of us is going to get hurt when it falls

Seriously. Snakes can't take very hot temperatures, and so must seek shade and cool places. Like under houses, in sheds, in the carport ... :worried:

Saw this on reddit. The caption read, "We got a little snow. We have a metal roof".

I just remembered, Boeing has those bars, on the metal roof buildings, over the doorways. They may have helped in the light snows but in the heavy snows they had to block those doors because of falling ice and frozen snow.

Baffin Bay :lol: close enough. Moosonee was my dog-sled experience, though. But there's more snow farther south - in the Muskoka area it was normal to have 12" fall overnight. Sort of like in upstate New York.

Like foot said, you want the 'deep snow without ice' look on your roof. The deep 'whommpp' sound of the snow sliding and falling is normal; you just don't want it falling on your head. Keep people away from the eaves and if your doors are all threatened, pick one and clear the roof in that area daily (I know, that would be a real pain) or put up baffles to divert the snow away.

This is currently my aunt's house. It's been in our family for a couple hundred years. When I was a kid, it was the best place I ever found for getting huge icicles. If you look closely at this picture taken the other day, there's one there on the front porch that's about 7 feet long.
Attachment 42393
Clearly it needs some more insulation, but the thing that interests me is that the longest icicles are at the front porch. The space above the front porch is unheated. That whole second story above the front porch, with the three small windows, is unheated attic. And to the right of the windows on the first floor on the actual front porch is an unheated pantry and stairway leading to the attic. So I don't know why it's melting so much. Those windows into the house on the front porch itself go into the heated dining room, but everything around the dining room is unheated.

It's curious to me. I do know it's a very old house with not much insulation, if any. It's really pretty in this picture.

There may be longer icicles below the unheated sectons because the melt water that runs of is only just above freezing so more quickly refreezes when it is exposed to the air. Melt water from sections of the roof above heated rooms, especially if insulation is poor will be warmer and has more chance to run all the way down and drip off the icicle to the ground before it cools down enought o freeze.

yes.


Before we insulated the attic an ice chunk icicle aggregate fell off and crushed our steel wheel barrow flat. Smashed the oak handles like they were nothing and completely mashed the steel basin flat.

Ice can fuck up your shit.

Looks like the flow of water from basically all the roofing area on the right side of the house travels to that one spot as well. Design flaw?
More water freezing = more ice, no?

Feature, not flaw.

My guess is that some of the house is not original. Additions almost always involve compromises in design.

thank you for posting the image in my head classic.

Perfect.

***

zippyt

Look. unless you change the shape of your roof so that the traffic patterns make people walk under the edge of the roof where there is no slope toward the path people are walking on, you're gonna have a problem. for your long horizontal at the end of some considerable slope you're always gonna shed snow there. it's not a problem when it's just rain, your gutters catch it and redirect it. to redirect the snow you'lll need some kind of snowplow shaped diverter over the walkpath. that, or you're just gonna have to manually remove it.

Thanks All , we are in need of redoing the front porch any way so there may be an alternative walking path in our future

Pretty much correct. The story passed down was that it was two houses joined together. The portion on the right has no basement and just sits on some rocks. There are some weird upstairs passageways. It's got a very bizarre floorplan.

Zippy, don't you have some kind of flame thrower / yard torch thingie?

Problem solved, the FUN way.

Just be a little careful, eh?

Keeping the roof from letting loose a full load of snow on someones head is why my entryway roof is perpendicular to the main roof. Pictured door is temporary, Hobbit door in design phase.

Zippy, don't you have some kind of flame thrower / yard torch thingie?


Yes I do , but the roof is slippery on a dry day , much less covered in snow and ice , so i believe my rather large self AINT getten up there

Geez Zen are ya tryen to kill me ?????? ;)

Please note snowplow shaped snow diverter above traffic path on Griffs house

BigV is always up for a deadly challenge like that

True....

V would stand under the ice, on a ladder, juggling a running chainsaw, so that at the top of the arc, the chainsaw would nibble away at the ice.

And it would work.

changing it back into gently falling snow.

Or, with the suitable application of lime juice and tequila, Snowgheritas!

There was a guy who did something culinary with a chainsaw, maybe I read about it here, he lubed it with olive oil. Now what they hell was he doing? Was it the Japanese fellow with the 200 million dollar tuna fish?

Okay, plan C.

You want to break that overhanging ice off, but from a safe distance.

You remember that a bowling ball will fit neatly in an oxy cylinder.

Moderate the charge, aim carefully ... video for posterity.

Zen you been staren at the Sun to much !!!!! ;)

Or, with the suitable application of lime juice and tequila, Snowgheritas!

I like this idea !!!

Maybe you could fill the bar and chain oil reservoir with tequila and lime juice then carve ice with the chainsaw, catch all the shaving in a glass.

Dat Man Gotz SKILLZ !!!

Zipster, just call the firemen, they'll take care of everything.

This is what happens when you don't stop the first one. ;)