Living in a place that has snow every year can be quite challenging. Homeowners should want to find the best ways to protect their families and homes from snow damage. Keep in mind that slick surfaces do not hold water, ice, or snow very well. In most cases, the snow, water, and ice will just slide off a surface. How to prevent snow from sliding off a metal roof? You will need to install a type of snow guard. This holds the snow in place.
Let’s take a look below at some more details regarding your options for keeping the snow from falling off the metal roof.
What Are My Options
Having options is a homeowner’s dream. Especially when it comes to added features on a home. If you live up north and install a metal roof, make sure you plan ahead for the winter. Your options for this are as follows:
- Snow guards – created to keep large amounts of snow and ice from dropping off your metal roof at one time. Comes in various shapes and colors so that they can blend into your roof’s style and keep the curb appeal.
- Snow rails – little fence-like objects that are installed on your metal roof edges.
What Are Snow Guards
Installing snow guards is a great idea. Snow guards were invented to protect your gutters, lower roofs, skylights, and anything below the roof from getting a sudden avalanche of snow and ice. Snow guards are used to keep snow and ice in place on your metal roof, allowing it to melt and slowly drift off. These guards keep the snow and ice from suddenly dropping like an avalanche onto anything unsuspecting below.
How Do I Install Snow Guards
Installing snow guards or a snow fence on your metal roof requires you to understand where on the roof they should be placed. With snow guards or fences coming in different shapes and sizes you are going to want to hire a professional to install them.
- Continuous snow guards – these are often called snow fences, snow rails, or pipe-style snow guards. They are composed of a bracket or seam clamp that attaches to the roof. Also, they have cross-members that anchor the brackets or clamps and keep the snow or ice from sliding off the metal roof.
- Discontinuous snow guards – these are often called snow cleats or pad-style snow guards. Typically, they have single or multiple pieces that do not have a continuous cross-member. This type of snow guard relies on bridging opposite devices. By doing this, the movement of snow is reduced.
Other Recommended Maintenance
Now that you know about snow guards, let’s look at a few other maintenance areas. One of those is removing snow from the roof. The roof can hold up to 20 pounds of snow, so you can leave it and let it melt or come down on its own. If that doesn’t work, you can use a special snow rake or heating cables.
Next, many people love to look at the beauty of snow outside their porches but you want to make sure it is a warm place to be. In order to winterize your porch, it is necessary to have windows or plastic coverings to keep the warmth inside.
Lastly, if you have a furnace, you will want to know where the filter is located. It is near the floor of the furnace compartment of the side door. It is important to make sure you change it out because if you don’t, the HVAC can stop working, the furnace overheats, short cycle in HVAC, or the cooling coils will freeze.
When Do I Call A Professional
Installing a type of snow guard can be rather challenging. You are dealing with adding something extra to your roof to protect the lower portions of your property. This might be a good time to hire a professional roofer or a contractor with experience installing snow guards. Also, reach out to your local home inspection team. They can inspect your roof and gutters to ensure that the snow and ice won’t cause more damage by holding steady on the metal roof.
Conclusion
When you are looking to install snow guards it is a good idea to hire a professional contractor. Most homeowners have zero intention of getting on their roofs. Getting on top of a metal roof that is slick is never an ideal situation. Call on your local home inspection team to ensure that snow guards or snow fences would work for your roofing system. Reach out to House Inspection Associates to conduct a roof inspection and a full home inspection in the Virginia, D.C., and Maryland areas.
