Get The Snow Off The Roof

An alternative way to remove snow from your roof.

Get the snow off the roof.

Removing snow from your roof is a slippery undertaking. Unfortunately sometimes you can rake ten feet of snow off your roof and still get an ice dam right where you stopped raking higher up on your roof. It does happen and it s a shame when it does. With your roof check your flashing shingles and asphalt underlay to make sure everything s tight and there s no damage that you missed and install a guard such as gutter helmet on your rain gutters to allow ice and snow to slide off the roof while catching water.

Rather than climbing a ladder in the cold or risking. Stand as far back from the edge of the roof as possible so snow or ice doesn t fall on top of you as you re raking. Instead of pulling the snow off your roof you re just sliding under the snow with a tarp that causes it all to glide off of your roof. Alternatively you can fill paper bags with calcium chloride and toss them up on to the roof just above the ice dam.

Avoid using a metal rake as this can scrape your roof and cause damage. If you live in a small one story home you can probably use a roof rake to reach most or all of your roof and keep it snow free by routinely raking the snow off. For instance the experts at house logic report that six inches of wet snow is equal to the weight of about 38 inches of dry snow this gives you some idea of how heavy the stuff really is. However it doesn t happen the majority of the time so don t conclude that raking your roof is a waste of time.

Never use rock salt for this as it will do more damage to your roof than it will to the ice. Roof raking is generally best as an ongoing winter long task that you the property owner can perform as a way of keeping the snow off your roof. There are plenty of ways you can modify your own but this. Mike kincaid recommended for you.

Heavy loads of wet snow can eventually lead to shingle damage stress on load bearing walls and even roof collapse. Nonetheless you can get a rough estimation of what the snow weighs by eyeballing its depth as it sits on your roof.