Shoveling roof -- DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

[JB4310]

It's not that easy. If you get a little rain or wet snow on the roof, it freezes on and as you can see, just keeps accumulating until a warm spell. This is doubly bad because the dormer behind the porch is steeper pitch so unloads quicker than the lower one. As far as getting behind and pushing, no way and when it decides to come, it's all at once so you'd end up on top of the pile.

I was wondering about mounting the cables on the underside of the roof and insulating them in. The problem is that the roof has 1" boards and a layer of shingles on them and hose cables aren't cheap to try something you're not sure will work.
Also thought about carefully placing an electric heater or infra red bulbs up there and temporarily insulating it in and watch it closely when I tried it, but don't know if the bulbs could ignite the boards or not. Lastly have thought about removing about 3 sheets over the walkway and put the cables directly on the old roof between the purlins. Got to study it out more.

I doubt the cables would work through the wood deck unless you left them on all the time.

I know all about snow unloading from upper roof on to lower, was working on a customers house yesterday, clearing lower roof, we saw ice and snow on upper but thought it's was staying put after a little banging on it.
Well right after getting the lower roof clear we were banging the lower ice dam and the upper one came down about 2 feet awy from me, not alot of snow but a 150 pound chunk of ice, would of put my lights out.

When we were finished clearing the lower roof there was enough of a pile of snow that I didn't need the ladder to get down, just stepped off onto the pile!

JB.

 

[beenthere]

JB
There is one good reason to not have those eves troughs on that upper level.

That chunk of ice prolly didn't do the lower roof any good either. :confused3:

 

[20 20]

Smiley; I agree this year stinks as far as letting snow off the metal roofs. Your idea is less dangerous then climbing up there. My only concern would be an equipment malfunction, blown hydro line or such.

 

[smiley]

Smiley; I agree this year stinks as far as letting snow off the metal roofs. Your idea is less dangerous then climbing up there. My only concern would be an equipment malfunction, blown hydro line or such.

If I thought this would be a regular thing, I'd fasten some conveyor belt to a 6 ft 2x4 and U bolt it to the teeth. I have grader blade set up like that for landscaping.

JB4310,
I may have had a brain fart this afternoon. After standing on the porch looking at the situation, trying to figure a way to blow heat up in there safely, I walked in the house and went to hang my coat in the back room where my wife was drying clothes, and heard the dryer running. A EUREKA moment!!! All that hot air blowing outside was just what I need.
It looks like I could mount the heater part of a dryer in the rafters, bore holes with a holesaw from the bottom, through the roof boards, and a hose to them through a plenum and the heat should follow the corrugations all the way up roof.
Now I've got to start looking for a junk dryer to take apart and see if it's practical.

 

[KubotainNH]

Gee, I just got a new dryer today and they took the old one away Interesting idea though. My question is how often do you really have this problem? This year is one for the books.

 

[smiley]

Gee, I just got a new dryer today and they took the old one away Interesting idea though. My question is how often do you really have this problem? This year is one for the books.

Usually i don't have it at all because I'm in Fla. but it was almost as cold down there this year as up here and it's not worth going down for only 5 or 6 weeks. Generally we'll get a few days above freezing when it can slide off but not this year. The only other time it bothers is if we get a huge dump of snow, then I get nervous walking under it. I have raked it in the past but not with these ice layers this year.

 

[Rio_Grande]

I am not criticising and ideed respect your ability. This reminds of what I do at work. If it works you are the man, if u fail you are the biggest idiot on the payrole.

Good work,, I wouldnt try it but it obvously worked for you..



On a side note My dad used to put a big heater in the attic and durring the day there was always a little stream of watter coming off the roof in places. The roof was at such a steep pitch you couldnt get on it without jacks in the summer let alone the winter. That wouldnt work in my house, too much insulation.

 

[JB4310]

This is the way to do it.:thumbsup:

You could make some money with that thing around here, I was gonna brag about how big and high my snow piles are this year, But man, no one is gonna beat yours

JB
There is one good reason to not have those eves troughs on that upper level.

That chunk of ice prolly didn't do the lower roof any good either. :confused3:

Yeah Gutters are really taking a beating this winter, I've seen them hanging off many houses. Those in the pic are copper, expensive. Every year we have straighten them out and can usually save them, probably be replacing alot of them this year.

It looks like I could mount the heater part of a dryer in the rafters, bore holes with a holesaw from the bottom, through the roof boards, and a hose to them through a plenum and the heat should follow the corrugations all the way up roof.
Now I've got to start looking for a junk dryer to take apart and see if it's practical.

Any amount of heat you put to the bottom of that metal and the snow/ice should release pretty quickly. Just don't burn the house down

JB.

 

[tulenutn2o]

Metal roofs around here get snow guards or curbs to prevent huge slides.

 

[smiley]

Metal roofs around here get snow guards or curbs to prevent huge slides.

I didn't want the snow guards as that would cause even more snow to pile up on the porch roof which is built to take a lot of weight, but there is a limit. Also the snow would block the view of the mountains from the dormer windows and when it started melting could back through the dormer into the house.

 

[dynasim]

I was flying out on the first flight of the day in January, and it was cold. They waited to deice the plane until we were all loaded, and i was sitting where the leading edge of the wing attaches.

The deicing truck scared the crap out of me. The driver was inside the truck, not far from the plane, moving back and forth, with some sort of arm sticking out from the truck shooting the deicing liquid.

It must have been my perspective, but it seemed like an accident waiting to happen. Deicing isn't a normal deal where I am from, so they can't get much practice.

Anyway, some people have more skills than I do!

Chris

 

[beenthere]

......... Also the snow would block the view of the mountains from the dormer windows and when it started melting could back through the dormer into the house.

From the original pic, the snow apparently has slid off the dormer roof and on to the roof of the lower room.

Any practical way to open a dormer window and use a pusher from there to move the snow down that lower roof (at least above the entry door) ??

I also thought there may be a clever way to pre-lay some ropes on the metal roof prior to any snow/ice that can be moved around from below to dislodge the snow/ice and cause it to slide off.

Seems there are better tricks that would work easier than trying to heat from below. That might just cause an ice dam to form at the un-heated edge and back water up into the home.

 

[tycteach]

Well, we don't get that much stuff generally here in Ok. but last year we had an ice storm and it looked like a bomb went off. All the horizontal limbs on the trees broke off for miles. Some limbs the size of your thigh or larger in diameter broke off the giant cottonwood and I had 6 holes in my roof. Several came all the way into the house and stopped at the floor. Quite an ordeal to say the least. Luckily I wasn't home when it happened. My son was the first on the scene and it took him 3 hours with a chain saw just to get the half mile down the lane to the house.

I wish I had been there to watch you get that snow/ice off with that equipment. It would have been interesting. You are much braver than I am. I sure wouldn't have tried that.

On the idea of the heater in the attic, I think I might consider that "before" the snow and ice hit and hoped the roof was warm enough to let it slip right off before it accumulated.

Keep up the good work and good luck.

 

[smiley]

From the original pic, the snow apparently has slid off the dormer roof and on to the roof of the lower room.

Any practical way to open a dormer window and use a pusher from there to move the snow down that lower roof (at least above the entry door) ??

I also thought there may be a clever way to pre-lay some ropes on the metal roof prior to any snow/ice that can be moved around from below to dislodge the snow/ice and cause it to slide off.

Seems there are better tricks that would work easier than trying to heat from below. That might just cause an ice dam to form at the un-heated edge and back water up into the home.

Like they say, "great minds think alike". I tried the pusher out the window and the rope in the snow the first year we put the roof on. The pusher was more work than the snow rake
and the rope somehow works it's way to the top even though we were pulling a down angle at the eaves. Then I'd have to climb up and stomp it in again. We even tried pre-laying it as you suggested, so it snowed on top of it and it still didn't do very well.

Tycteach,
I know what you]re talking about with the Ice. Probably 10 years ago they had such a storm through the Adirondacks and Quebec. Trees stripped bare for at least 100 miles that we saw and one of my Nephews outside of Montreal was out of power for a month.

My heater experiment will be in the porch roof as it has less slope than the dormer, so the dormer that gets some heat from the house unloads onto the porch when about a foot builds up.

As far as being brave enough to do it, I'll let you in on a little secret. When you've been running backhoes for 40 plus years It wasn't that big of deal, because most of it was done by putting the curled bucket in the snow near the eaves, then swinging sideways then going a little higher and do the same until the end of your reach. It just broke about 3 ft at a time and slid right off. Just the slope of the roof precluded hitting it as it swung. Sometimes I actually had to let the boom down as I swung to keep it from popping out of the snow.

 

[JB4310]

If I thought this would be a regular thing, I'd fasten some conveyor belt to a 6 ft 2x4 and U bolt it to the teeth. I have grader blade set up like that for landscaping.

Something like in the pic attached below?

I also thought there may be a clever way to pre-lay some ropes on the metal roof prior to any snow/ice that can be moved around from below to dislodge the snow/ice and cause it to slide off.

My brother uses the rope trick with his arch shaped metal roof over part of his house in Vermont. Pulls the rope along the side and it works for him but that is a steep roof so it doesn't take much dislodge the load.

JB.

 

[smiley]

Something like in the pic attached below?
JB.

Nope. Yours is a lot fancier than mine. I Don't use it much and it's just a grader cutting edge about 6 ft long x 8" wide, with holes blown through it for u bolts to go around the teeth, but it did what I needed for trimming some slopes and ditches. For the swale type ditches, I had the son drive slowly down the drive while I reached over the backside first then the front and did it just like a grader. Worked pretty good, would have been better if I could have tilted it like a Gradal.

 

[PILOON]

My buddy has 9 public storage buildings with typical low slopped roofs.
Couple years back we had many collapsed roofs in the area and his insurance advised him that snow load damage would not be covered.
Shovelers were quoting $3-4000 to clear his roofs.

He called a friendly contractor that used his big tracked excavator and in a matter of 4 hours they pulled 80% of the snow load without a single bit of damage to the roof.
Total cost: little under $500.!
BUT then the operator was a real pro!
I would have thought that he'd have used some sort of plank across the teeth, but no he simply hooked the teeth onto the ice sheet and gently pulled the snow down in huge clumps.
Again I stress that there was not a single tooth mark on any surface at all! BUT a huge mess of compacted snow on the ground that took days to completely scrape away.

 

[beenthere]

I can picture in my mind using the backhoe or other crane-like boom lift to place a wooden drag on the roof snow and pulling it off. The wood drag (like a large wood pallet) would just be suspended from the lift using chains or ropes.

No extra load or danger from the lift getting too close, but seems the pallet (drag) would have enough weight to bite the snow and pull it off.

Anything to avoid shoveling by hand or getting onto the roof (been there, done that and might need to do it today or tomorrow ). Wish I had a boom lift to try it out (and the talent to operate the boom).

 

[cdaigle430]

Nice I'm Jealous, everyone else that critizes it wished they though of it first.:thumbsup: