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Some time ago an article in Fine Homebuilding addressed roof designs in snow country. The conclusion was to avoid avalanches by building a 4/12 roof pitch with non sliding roofing material, such as asphalt. And no valleys. This agrees with my experience. I used to live in Alaska where I built two cabins, one with a steep metal roof, and the other with a modest pitch and asphalt shingles. The second was more beautiful with the snow that accumulated on top, and it did not wake me up with a thundering slide at 2 a.m., burying everything in its path.
Now I am building in really heavy snow country near Snoqualmie Pass outside of Seattle. The snowfall there is 5 to 15 feet, and can be very wet. I have heard we have to engineer for 250 lbs. per square foot. Everyone has steep metal roofs, but I wan to buck the trend. The avalanches are dangerous, the piles of snow around the house cover windows, etc, and we have to engineer for the weight anyway.
Any experience with such modest pitched asphalt roofs holding 5 to 15 feet of snow? What do you do about the chimney pipe coming out of the roof (make it 15 feet higher than the roof?) I have not seen any books orother articles that deal with this issue, and it is an issue that has been around ever since people have built in heavy snow country, and long before metal roofs. What did the Scandanavian do, for example?
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Some time ago an article in Fine Homebuilding addressed roof designs in snow country. The conclusion was to avoid avalanches by building a 4/12 roof pitch with non sliding roofing material, such as asphalt. And no valleys. This agrees with my experience. I used to live in Alaska where I built two cabins, one with a steep metal roof, and the other with a modest pitch and asphalt shingles. The second was more beautiful with the snow that accumulated on top, and it did not wake me up with a thundering slide at 2 a.m., burying everything in its path.
Now I am building in really heavy snow country near Snoqualmie Pass outside of Seattle. The snowfall there is 5 to 15 feet, and can be very wet. I have heard we have to engineer for 250 lbs. per square foot. Everyone has steep metal roofs, but I wan to buck the trend. The avalanches are dangerous, the piles of snow around the house cover windows, etc, and we have to engineer for the weight anyway.
Any experience with such modest pitched asphalt roofs holding 5 to 15 feet of snow? What do you do about the chimney pipe coming out of the roof (make it 15 feet higher than the roof?) I have not seen any books orother articles that deal with this issue, and it is an issue that has been around ever since people have built in heavy snow country, and long before metal roofs. What did the Scandanavian do, for example?