Heavy, wet snow

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Chet18013

Chet18013

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 5, 2005
Posts
1,861
Location
Full time in RV. Home is where we are parked
Last year was our lucky year. We sold our house and started full time in our Monaco. This winter has been especially bad, with almost 60" of snow where we used to live. Most of it has been of the heavy wet variety. For over 20 years, we stored our 5th wheel, then motor home in the pole barn that I originally built to store our farm equipment.

Here's two photos of the pole barn. The first has our Beaver and Roger Potie's Monaco in it. Taken about 1999. The second was taken Thursday afternoon right after the roof collapse.

The new owner, an artist, had turned the office trailer into a studio and had just finished installing a pellet stove.

Edit: Fixed image/thumbnail.
 

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Chet, wow, talk about good timing!  Were you lucky.
 
Were you in the pnw? That is what our yard looks like  this morning, it's been coming down since Friday night. If the trailer was ready, I'd be chaining up and outa here.
 
OUCH..  Interesting thing.. The most a foot of snow can possible weigh is 62 pounds. I mean water is 62.4 pounds per cubic foot.

I am 300 pounds and walk all over my Class A,, I wear size 12s, about 2/3 of a square foot if both feet are on the roof.. That's 900 pounds per square foot when I lift one foot, such as to take a step.

I have walked may roofs back when I was only 250 pounds and working as a ladder monkey..er, roofer.
 
Keep in mind though, John, that the total weight you put on the roof and its supports is 300 lbs, whereas a foot of snow over 100 sq. ft. of roof is 100 cu. ft, or about 6200 lbs. (max, of course, by your figures). The pillars won't support that nearly as well as they will the 300 lbs. and this looks like it was the wooden supports that gave way, not the sheet steel, or tin, or whatever the roofing material is.
 
In Fairbanks, the local TV weather reports gave water content of the snow if it was above normal. There was also warnings on all the news casts when the weight of the snow started to approach the weight of the roof building code limit.

Then you knew it was time to shovel the roof.
 
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