Shovelling Off the Roof Leaves Meisner Knee Deep in Controversy
By Ben Meisner
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 03:45 AM
While it couldn’t be considered much of a debate the matter of shovelling your roof took 
center stage last weekend.
center 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 roof repair company.
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.
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 under the new load limits, 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 their 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 snow and its several feet high commpared to the other side where its only one foot high, 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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Posted by: rayban68 on January 13 2009 8:19 AM
The question I then have is what warning is being sent out by the City or the Province that all those houses built before the new standard, and were built not exceeding that standard, are substandard and prone to collapse?
What was the reason for the change? The expectation that by the time most of the older housing stock built pre 2005 has been rebuilt in say 2075, the weather is expected to change? Have there been residential roof collapses we have not heard of?
At that loading, we are then at a similar level as more snowy places such as Kimberley, Fernie, Nelson, Revelstoke.
Now we have this gem apparently coming from a building inspector.
"two feet isn’t a major problem. Matter of fact he says its good insulation on your home"
The style of building here is to build an attic space with enough venilation so that it stays relatively cold so that the snow does not melt and cause ice daming problems. Canadian houses are not designed to use the snow as an insulator as some houses in other countries are.