Pictures: Snow on Roofs

[MountainDon]

[MountainDon]

[MountainDon]

and one reason why some snow will build up, not slide off

[Ernest T. Bass]

Awesome.. I've seen a few of those before, but they never get old. We've got up to another 20'' coming in the next couple days.. This time last year was in the 70s.

[rick91351]

Is the house with the large Stay Puff Marshmallow sitting at top of it for real.

[MountainDon]

 

LINK to source   click on image there for a larger image

[MountainDon]

.

[rick91351]

A scant  266 miles away

[rick91351]

I have seen that photo a couple times of that poor snowed in house.  However I never have seen a history or anything about it like what, when or where.  Sort of puts our 120 lbs snow loads to shame in this country.     I don't know how you even start to calculate the weight on that roof.    I don't think I would sleep very well!

     

[JRR]

... got a little wind and hail yesterday.  No evidence today.

I haven't had the joy of experiencing much snow on roofs.  Has anyone ever tried laying down a cover of tarps before the snow, and then pulling it all down together afterwards?  .... just a thought.  Especially where an ice-dam might form.

[rick91351]

Some of the snow country houses here now are being engineered for more mega snow loads.  They then concentrate on keeping the snow up there and slowly melting it off.  Come spring this is less taxing on the dwellings drainage and foundation it is felt.  This also allows for a more natural water shed you might say.  Plus they also toss out there the insulating qualities of snow.

[UK4X4]

Makes my snow on the roof pics look boring !- love that completely covered one that looks like it has 20ft high snow on the roof

My place gets sun most of the day so the south side gets melted

The wind comes from the south east in most of the storms leaving the snow on the north sides-

We have had easily 6ft of snow this season- but the wind and sun do their job on keeping it moving and melting

Ours is usually also dry and powdery

Roof and building was engineered for the full 90# ground load- not adjusted for slope/material/exposure etc etc

View from the north west- with a light covering- unheated empty all season

South side gets burnt off - we have clear blue skies when there's no winter storms

On the trailer its a flat roof- wind movement and the sun hitting the south side move the snow all to one side

[SouthernTier]

How about this one:




from this cabin building blog: http://www.mvr1.com/timberframing/timberframecabin.html

[SouthernTier]

That guy built his pretty stout (note, that's a porch in the front).

His neighbor not-so-stout:

[Squirl]

You know what I also don't see, collar ties or rafter ties.  I can see the bottom of the first six rafters and the tops of the middle seven rafters. Not a tie in sight.  Notice the top wall tilted outward. Rafter thrust.

But I'm sure "it had a steep pitched roof" so snow would just slide right off and they didn't have to worry about rafter ties.

[MountainDon]

 

another view of the cabin SouthernTier posted. Thing to remember is that is has a metal roof, a steeply pitched metal roof... 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Alright, here's my contribution to the collection, taken yesterday of a lean-to off of our shop (it's about a 5' wall):

[Don_P]

 
I was looking through old files last night and saw a couple of pics of decks torn off houses from that type of load coming down. In high snow regions think about them too, the 50 psf deck design load is replaced by the 90 lb snow load in UK's region for instance, then it would be a good idea to look up and see what else might come down.

As an aside we had a discussion awhile back about the practice of finishing out a subfloor with a narrow strip of ply or osb that doesn't lap well back onto the joists, tieing the rim to the floor joists as a unit with shear nailing. One of the pics of a deck failure showed the ends of joists, the rim had withdrawn and came off with the ledger, it was not well tied back to the floor. The new lateral connector requirement should help there but that narrow strip can indeed be trouble.

[MountainDon]

Wow!!  That is some curl!!

[John Raabe]

The photo of the ruined cabin that SouthernTier posted above (#13) is rather telling. Note that there is no structural sheathing in the walls - only horizontal boards nailed to studs. This provides very little lateral stability. The roof appears to have no ties of any kind - just a ridge board with rafters tacked to it and the wall plate. (It may be that there wasn't even a ridge board, I can't find one in the image but it is hard to imagine they would just tack the rafters together at the ridge!) Clearly, there was no roof sheathing to add strength and rigidity - they just nailed metal roof panels to the rafters.

Interestingly, the spindly post and pier foundation without benefit of any bracing at all has survived pretty well - better than the house above it. Of course all it would take would be the next heavy wind storm or earthquake to twist that down to the ground as well.

A real cascade of unthinking errors and sloppy work.