Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I'm looking for something that would be good for doing our roof. obviously the big 2 stage Toro won't be able to do it and would be a PITA to get up a ladder or out a window.

We have a new roof so I don't want to hurt the roof but the snow is really built up out there and it tends to melt very slowly. We are heading into Feb and lots more snow so I need something light enough and easy to manuever to use up there. The roof is pretty steep and in one section windows are mounted in the roof so that area might not be possible. They want a fortune to clear it and only the lesser section so I need something. Electric would probably be ok but it has to have enough power and the roof is pretty steep and high.

Any ideas?

Steve_Cebu wrote:
Not sure what the building code is in your area but in central Canada I believe the roof has to be designed to hold at least 240 lbs. per square foot.   It takes a lot of snow to contribute that much weight.  

In the winter of 1995 to 1996, we had record breaking snow accumulations.   My camp neighbour took a ride out to our camps to check his camp for snow load on the roof.   He said that eve with snow shoes on, he practically had to wade through the snow to get to the camps.   When he got there he said that he had though my camp had disappeared.   From his camp which east of my camp, he said the snow was continuous right from the roof to the ground.  He couldn't see any sign of the camp.  When he walked around to the west side of the camp, he could see about one foot of the wall below the eves and the front of the camp which faces the lake, had snow right up to the top of the front window which is approx. 7 feet from ground level.   That was a huge amount of snow and the camp held up despite the fact that it's probably not built as well as homes built under Provincial building codes.   

By the way, you don't need to get all of the snow off of the roof.  If you can pull the snow off  past the half way point of the truss' span  you'll be relieving a lot of weight.  Of course, if you can get more off, the better.    I've never done it on my home, even for the winter of '95-'96 but I had my house built and was involved in building it.  So, I have confidence in it's structure.     

I think that the builder who built my house worked for the "save the stud" foundation.   It was built to minimally accepted standards.  My roof is made of 2X4 yellow pine trusses, two feet on center, and covered with 7/16 inch Aspenite.  Never had a problem but I have to admit being concerned last year when we got hit with three feet of snow in a five day span.  Everything seemed like it was holding up fine but I didn't want to take a chance.  I opened the attic access and placed a large Omni Kerosun heater underneath the opening.  All of the heat went up into the attic and it didn't take long before the snow started to melt away.

borat wrote:

The building code here is pretty strict now. I'm not sure how strict it was 40+ years ago. We are going to get prices and wait for the next storm to hit. The roof is brand new as of last year. I think it's probably built well but it's a lot of heavy snow up there. If this were in my driveway it would take an hour with my 2 stage to clear it all.

It sounds like your winter camp was built very well. The roofs are also smaller so that is also a factor. Ours is a huge area of roof. I was hoping to find an easy way to get it all off there but there really isn't. a single stage would rip the roofing tiles right off the roof.

Two years ago, I installed metal roofing on all of my buildings at camp.   Now, they're self shedding.  Once they accumulate so much weight, gravity takes over and the snow slides off in one big rush.   Kind of like a mini avalanche.  You don't want to be standing under the eves when the snow comes off. 

borat wrote:

This is what I wanted to install but it was literally twice as much and that's a lot of money for this house. This house looks small on the outside but inside it's HUGE. I really wish we could have afforded the metal roof but it wasn't in the budget. Metal roofs are really the way to go in snow country.

I use a roof rake to get what I can from the ground.  Then I fill up some of the wife's old pantyhose with MgCl ice melter and place them strategically along the first row of shingles, so that any snow melting off the roof on warm days (we've had two days above freezing in the last month) stays melted until it moves out of the gutters - good for preventing ice jams.  My roof is ventilated enough that I don't get snow melt until we get warm sunny days.

That being said, last year I had over three foot of snow on the majority of the roof, including the backside and the peak that I couldn't reach with the roof rake.  I got up there with a snow shovel and worked carefully to get the majority of it off, always making sure I had plenty of traction.

As mentioned, the snow that falls off the roof does turn into "concrete".  It was pretty hard on my Craftsman 928, so I just used the Garant snow scoop to move it off the driveway - worked easier and faster than the snowblower in that case.

Btw, if you ever need to build an igloo or snow cave for survival purposes, the best way to do it is to throw the snow up into the air and let it fall into a pile.  Doing so makes the snow "hard-pack" like when it falls off your roof.  Once you get a big enough pile made, you can start digging out a cave.  Proper way to carve out the cave is to use sticks pushed through the mound as a guide, but I'm getting off-topic, so just do a websearch for building a snow-cave.

longboat wrote:

The roof rake is a good idea but no way it would be long enough for this house. Maybe some of the lower section. Our house doesn't have a steep angle to it and our living room has a 23.5 foot ceiling. I kid you not we used to have 18 foot Christmas trees in there! I have a pic but no way to scan it. Anyway a roof rake would have to be at least 40 feet long to work. Gutters are useless here the ice just rips them off every year. To reach the peak of the house wouldn't be possible from the back, it'd be a bit easier from the front. but it's hardpack up there and then the trees drop and compact even more snow.

Thankfully I should be retiring early in 8-10 years and then the only time I'd ever see snow again is on TV.

Thanks for the info on snow caves, maybe my wife will want to build one, she likes things like that.

Steve_Cebu wrote:
I'm glad that I don't have your heating bills.

Paul7 wrote:

This year even with the living room closed off we are spending over $1,000 a month for heating oil!

Steve_Cebu wrote:
Ouch!

We live in a modest 1800 square foot house with 14' high vaulted ceilings in a couple rooms.  We situated the house to capture as much solar heat as possible in the winter.  Lots of south facing windows and no shade.  Temps can dip to -40F.  We seldom see gas bills over $200.00 a month during winter and my wife likes it fairly warm.