To prevent a roof collapse the slope of your roof makes a huge difference.
Solution to roof snow drift.
Sloped retrofit metal roofing solution for lower roof abrasive roofing materials asphalt shingles or aggregate surface build up membranes do not shed snow as well as slippery surfaced standing seam metal roofing.
For adjacent drifts we do not start with 4 hdand then possibly increase the width we start with the 1 on 6 shade line.
Lets assume our project is in madison wisconsin and we have already calculated our balanced roof snow load here.
By elevating driveways above the surrounding terrain wind will sweep snow off of the roadway.
Provisions on how to calculate the snow drift surcharge for structures can be found in section 7 8 of asce 7 10.
If it weren t for those two concerns you could just let the snow pile onto your roof.
This approach is conservative and simpler but for small gap the width could be 6 hd.
From our example our ground load and flat roof snow load were found to be 30 psf and 21 psf respectively.
Determine the direction from which wind usually moves the snow.
A sloped metal roof system can be installed directly over the lower flat roof minimizing business disruption.
Length of high roof lu.
Figure 7 1 pages 84 85 and table 7 1 page 92.
Before building a barrier to prevent the build up of snow drifts such barriers are typically called a snow fence you must assess the area where the snow drifts.
Ground snow load pg.
Length of roof upwind of the snow drift.
For ordinary leeward drifts the width is 4hd unless hd hcin which case we set the height at hcand increase the width.
Solutions to these problems are generally self evident e g place air intakes high up on the wall keep windows at roof steps as high above the lower roof as possible locate plumbing vents and.
Table 1 1 page 3.
The second reason is you live in an ice dam prone home and you want to prevent ice dams.
This is fairly simple to determine even when it isn t snowing.
Perhaps the least costly option is to institute a snow drift monitoring program after a significant snow or winter wind event the roof could be inspected to look for snow drifts at known susceptible areas.