How Much Snow On Roof Is Too Much Montana

We have a high snow load.

How much snow on roof is too much montana. How much snow a roof can hold depends on the type of snow roofline and material among other considerations. You need to be careful with flat roofs. On thursday and saturday march 10th and 12th two gym roofs at montana state university msu in. It is right on up there with a balcony at 55 to 60 psf.

The chart below courtesy of paul schimnowski p e gives some examples of snow loads. This means that you can have a maximum snow load of 1 2 m 4 ft before the roof becomes stressed. Packed snow 7 5 to 12 5 cm 3 to 5 in of old snow is equivalent to 2 5 cm 1 in of water or about 2 3 kg 5 pounds per square foot of roof space. Over the past week as we got pummeled by a desperately needed snowstorm we watched the fluff pile up on our rooftop.

One business in missoula the silver theater already saw the affects too much. Note that the state of montana requires a minimum roof snow load of 30 psf be used for design. Local and or state requirements on the ground snow loads or the roof loads subsequently calculated from these values supercede the values provided by this snow load finder tool. For example where the design load is 50 psf 2x10 no.

It may be one foot high in one spot and eight feet high in another spot. Right off the top count on a minimum of 30 psf that is state code. These questions aren t quite so easy to answer because there are several variables. So how much snow does this equal.

Armed with that number a builder can frame the roof appropriately. It doesn t take much snow piled up into one concentrated area to collapse a flat roof. What was once a gym image. After a big snow year in montana some areas of the state are struggling with the load.

Several feet of snow have piled up on roofs across the state over the past couple days. It seemed like common sense to me that a heap of snow would add too much weight to our northwood arctic fox. A depth of more than 30 cm of snow may be greater than your roof can support. Montana ground snow load finder.

In case you need to know the snow load requirements should you be thinking to build a house in montana you can go to the montana ground snow load finder. As everyone knows cold fluffy snow is very light while wet snow can be extremely heavy. 2 spruce rafters can handle a maximum span of about 15 ft. Big snow year proves to be too much for montana state university roof adrian dolatschko march 15 2019 weather.

In snow country that number might be anywhere from 30 or 35 pounds per square foot psf to more than 70 psf.