Not Enough Snow To Shovel That Roof

By Ben Meisner

While it couldn’t be considered much of a debate the matter of shovelling your roof made the stage last weekend.

The best comment came from Armand Lachapelle, of Artistic Homes who said that if you feel the need to shovel your roof and you take too much snow off, when you get down from the roof, you might want to look in the yellow pages to find a good roofer.

He talked about the time he had to shovel his roof back in the winter of 81-82 when the snow in PG was seven feet deep on the roof. He mentioned that he was driving around the city one day that year and saw a couple of dogs who simply had climbed the snow bank onto the top of the house and were keeping warm near the chimney of the fireplace.

He also was quick to point out that after the roof of the Pine Center was shovelled off the following spring the membrane on the structure had been broken by shovelling and the place suddenly sprung leaks on the entire structure. His point don’t shovel unless you have to and with two feet of snow on most roofs, you don’t need to.

I talked to people that I considered worthy of comment when I put a story together they included Peter Crolow, Bruce Nyberg(Ebb Const) Joe Myatovic (Myatovic Const) Wayne Ward (Wood Capital Products ) and finally to Bill Rushton who has pounded nails around this city for more than fifty years.

To a man they said not enough snow to shovel your roof. 50 pounds per sq ft used to be the weight the trusses had to hold that has changed to 80lbs. Think about it, that means that a 4x8 sheet of plywood would carry 2,560lbs safely, or 1600 pounds the old way. By the way if you use two 4x8 sheets of plywood the rating on your roof on a new home would carry a half ton suburban Chevy. Now you could put a lot of trucks on most roofs.

Now there may be a few homes out there that are suspect, if you’re worried ask a pro to have a look, don’t go out and spend money without that advice first. Joe Myatovic says it’s very easy to scare old people into thinking there roof is going to fall in and they go out and spend money they didn’t need to.

One of the city building inspectors who says he wasn’t quoted correctly says two feet isn’t a major problem. Matter of fact he says its good insulation on your home. Here is where someone got side tracked with him. IF YOU HAVE BUILD UP OF SNOW ON ONE SIDE OF THE HOUSE FROM BLOWING AND ITS SEVERAL FEET HIGH COMPARED TO THE OTHER SIDE WERE ITS ONLY ONE FOOT DEEP, YOU NEED TO SHOVEL. That will make the snow load equal on the home. Other than that watch, if the snow gets to be five feet deep in February look at shovelling it then. In the mean time avoid the head ache.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.  

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