We Don’t get a lot of Snow in South Carolina but our Western North Carolina Customers see it rather fequently. Reguardless Snow retention is important where ever you may live, here are a few reasons you should consider adding this line of protection to your home or business.
1. Protect Building Occupants and Pedestrians
Safety first! The number one reason to install snow guards is to protect the people who walk below it. Metal roofs are often used for canopies at entrance/exit doors where pedestrians are walking, and vehicles are loading. Ensuring safe passage into buildings is really a no-brainer. If you can help prevent unpredictable falling snow loads, why wouldn’t you? Assuming that mound of snow hanging precariously over the roof edge will probably fall AFTER you walk under it is living just a bit too much in the danger zone. So, protect the “danger zones”. Metal Roofs are also often used for canopies at entrance/exit doors where pedestrians walk and vehicles load. Protect these areas with snow guards.
2. Limit Liability
Do you own a business where endless numbers of people walk in and out? If a large amount of snow from your roof falls on someone, guess who is potentially liable? You. Putting up a few signs in an attempt to reduce your liability holds no water (and no snow for that matter). The snow hasn’t fallen yet, but can you guarantee it won’t fall when an unsuspecting individual deigns to walk below?
3. Protect Vehicles, Equipment, and Landscaping
Snow falling off a roof doesn’t judge. It crashes down on whatever sits below. Snow guards help protect vehicles and equipment too. Snow might be fluffy and light when it falls, but once it piles up on the roof, gravity load of the snowbank increases – magnifying the weight that will land below.
As for landscaping, if the rooftop avalanche wasn’t a direct hit, once it is piled up down below, that same snow bank can continue to cause additional troubles (e.g. causing repeated snow removal; direct damage to building walls; indirect damage caused by funneling melt water into, rather than away from the walls and foundations, etc.).
4. Protect Building and Roof Elements
Protect your lower roof or property from tons of snow or Ice crushing it below. Rooftop avalanches can shatter windows, rip off gutters (Most common issue we see in this area), tear away siding, demolish vents, flatten panel seams, buckle panels, infiltrate the roof membrane and allow water to infiltrate the panels, exposing them to corrosion and degradation.
5. Reduce Maintenance Costs
Preserve the integrity of your metal roof by preventing needless and careless damage or wear and tear that the roof was never designed to handle or support. The Metal Construction Association’s (MCA) stresses the importance of a properly engineered roof and a properly engineered snow guard system. But you must calculate the force of the snow for a specific area that the snow guards will restrain and engineer the strength of the system accordingly. The right snow retention system will then help spread these loads across the roof panels – holding snowpack in place until it slowly evacuates the roof by thaw and evaporation – greatly reducing the threat of a deadly rooftop avalanche.
