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Manage Snow Accumulation on Roofs

2:48
12:30
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12 Things I Wish I Knew Before Building a House

What happens here

A-frame roofs, particularly those with a steep pitch and long rafter runs that lack traditional soffits, pose a considerable challenge for snow management in winter climates. Snow sliding off the roof tends to pile up directly against the building's foundation, creating a snow depth of 8 to 9 inches away from the structure. This accumulation requires regular shoveling to prevent moisture from soaking into the fascia board and causing damage or swelling. Additionally, heat exchange units (AC units) placed near the building will also accumulate snow, although they are not used in winter. Snow can also push out from underneath the unit. The ideal solution for heat exchangers is to place them at the front or back of the house where snow build-up is less severe or place them under a protective structure. Snow stoppers on the roof can help, but they may break under heavy snow loads, and constant maintenance is required to remove snow from critical areas.

Goal: Long, steep A-frame roofs without extended soffits cause significant snow accumulation around the foundation and can affect ground-level HVAC units, requiring diligent snow removal.

Tools and materials

  • Heat Exchanger (AC Unit)
  • Snow Shovel
  • Snow Stoppers

What they say

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I can number four on the list is something that's problematic in the wintertime because the A-frame roofs are so long and they don't have a bump out for a sofit all the snow gets bumped pumped out to about what looks like 8 to 9 in away from the building now that means you're going to be shoveling and updating to make sure it doesn't build up and hit your little fascia board and get it sucked up and start swelling up number two it's going to you got you're going to have to make sure that snow doesn't melt later on and goes into your crawl space now conveniently for our situation we did an attic blower fan in there where all of these are going to get closed off the vents and the HV guy installed a pipe through there with a blower fan that's going to get all the moisture out so you don't need these little vents but they will need to be covered up and the most annoying part of the roofing situation here is when snow gets diverted down here it's going to start building up against our heat exchanger which it's fine because you're not going to be using your AC unit in the winter time but it's also going to build it up and push it out to the side the only real solution for that to be is to put it in the front or the back of the house but that depends on whether or not you have the space or you want it to be an iore when you walk in another solution for this is to put some snow stoppers on the metal roof the problem with that is enough snow gets built up on them the roofer said that those break off very easily straight from the rafters themselves the only real possible solution here is to build another roof pitch right over it it's not going to cancel out this snow build up on the side but at least keep as much snow off of it that you could possibly can again regular maintenance during snow to remove it from this area area to prevent any kind of problems number five

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