Roof Snow Holds

How much snow can a roof hold.

Roof snow holds.

To figure out the load on your roof take the depth of snow in feet and multiply it by the weight of a cubic foot of snow. These questions aren t quite so easy to answer because there are several variables. The idea is that as snow and ice back up against the guards it will harden and create a dam. If your roof is 1 000 square feet the total snow load is 15 000 pounds of snow.

If the snow weighs 10 pounds per cubic foot and there are 1 5 feet on the roof each square foot of the roof is getting 15 pounds of pressure. The residential code of ohio which applies to one and two family homes shows a map indicating the required snow load. That sounds simple enough right. If the gutters are blocked then the melted snow can t run away as it normally would.

How much snow a roof can hold depends on the type of snow roofline and material among other considerations. In turn the ice dam will prevent the mass of snow from sloughing off the roof all at once in a single avalanche. Instead the water refreezes creating an ice dam. This can also happen if you have metal gutters as the metal holds cold temperatures well.

Roof snow loads indicate the amount of additional force pressing down on a building when snow and ice pile up on the roof during winter storms. How much snow can my residential roof hold. These occur when snow melts off a roof into the gutters.