Another snow newbie question. (Portland, Hope: apartment, foreclosed, homes)

[genmomto5]

The weather man keeps saying clear the snow from our roofs because there will be a brief thaw this weekend and we don't want any tragedy's. Is this about falling icicles or roofs collapsing? Also our roof is very high... how do we go about this snow removal?

[elston]

When my son first move to Portland he had an apartment in a building near Congress Square. He had a parking space next to the building. His car got smashed under an avalanche of falling icicles and crusted frozen snow and ice from the edge of the roof. It pretty much caved the roof in and the landlord had no liability for the damage. I guess it was let the parker beware.

[cdodge04]

Removing the snow from your roof does a couple things...

1. It takes all the weight off the roof.
2. When the snow is on there and it starts to melt there is more of a chance of standing water doing damage to your home, this is in my experience. I see a lot of foreclosed homes that I work on develope significant water damage during this time of year. Snow doesn't get removed, and the water flows less freely, the water finds every place possible to leak through.
3. Safety...like the above poster said...when it all starts to melt it comes flying off and can seriously hurt people. At Mt. View Elementary school they had this problem some years ago. Snow came off the roof and hit a girl, it really hurt her.

I'm sure there may be other reasons too, but those are the 3 I can think of.

Depending on how tall the roof is you can get those extendable roof brushes. I've seen a lot of people use those to get the snow off their house. Its safer than crawling up there yourself.


Hope this helps a little.

[CapeCodder]

OMG I just asked a similar question...
what a pair we are!