Remarkable season! How has it affected your burning customs. Pics of 165 man crew removing snow fr

So this year will go down in history! Everyone around here agrees that the snow has been more than we have been able to deal with in some cases. Many homes and commercial buildings have collapsed as a result of the heavy snow loads. One guy ended up on the news and the courtroom for charging an older gentleman $4,800 to shovel off his roof. Yes that is thousand and also in dollars! The snow was bitter sweet. Some people got to make lots of money with snow removal, either plowing or shoveling roofs. Many people I know who were laid off took to the roofs for a form of income. I just got done with a 58 hour in a six day stretch pushing snow off commercial roofs. There were 160+ people (union carpenters for the most part)on this snow removal crew. We had pusher shovels that don't require picking up to get to the edge of the roofs. The shifts were 10 hours long and you can't really lift snow in regular shovels for that long. These scooped as much as ten times as a regular shovel and you pushed them along and off the edge goes the snow! Some roofs required ice roads to be built and kept up throughout the day. Unfortunately, the remaining roofs we were supposed to clear (would have taken another 6 days with this huge crew,) will not need clearing. There is no more snow on the forecast and the temps are going to serve us with a thaw in the next week. So, the white gold has stopped falling from the ski. I will always remember this incredibly difficult and lucrative process. But, it sure feels nice to be home today!! My stove has been dormant for a couple of weeks due to a shortage of ready wood. I went outside and cut and split wood in a T shirt as temps reached 48. It was a beautiful afternoon capped off by a nice fire when I went inside. Last night was also more comfortable, as the wood stove warmed the house and the furnace stayed off. I vowe to get a proper wood supply for next year so this doesn't happen again.

One thing is for sure. I will always remember this Winter of storms.

Thank you for reading my little story, I will try to post the pics I took with my cell phone. I wish I took more.
PIC #1 A guard rail on the edge of the roof and my snow pusher about to dump some snow.
#2 A pic of the ice road on the first roof, we had to walk the snow all the way across this one, due to what was on the other sides, cars, lower roofs, etc...
#3 Another pic trying to show the crewmen pushing the snow on the ice roads. The roads got really soft that day, it was like walking on the beach with snow boots and gear on, but much more slippery! And much more walking. Also minus the sun's warmth, the waves...

Wow man, 12 hours of straight shoveling! That is a bear. The first day I did most by shovel, after lunch was pushing. Even that was tough. At one point, late in the afternoon, we had to lift the snow into a crane basket, which was no pick-nick. But you're right, a good crew makes all the difference. A lot of the guys I knew from my local, others were from surrounding locals, all union carpenters so we had that in common. At the end, we all had another story in common. It becomes about more than six days of hard work shared together. It was a unique experience that will be remembered by many who were there. I even got to talk stoves with a couple of guys who I already knew, but didn't know they burned wood. One guy had a Jotul, I think it was the castine or Oslo (he didn't remember the model,) the other had an old Defiant here in Mass, a Reliant up in Canada and a pellet stove. They were kind of shocked when I started asking questions about the stoves, like I was some sort of stove encyclopedia. I just said I love stoves and try to learn as much as I can about them. Kinda funny what we here on this site share, we turn out to be more than a bunch of people talking about their own stoves. We also share a special bond.

Backwoods Savage said:

And just think about the places that get that much snow for a normal winter. Many spend some big dollars every year for snow removal. Some don't learn and end up replacing roofs after they cave in.

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I was amazed at how weak these roofs really are. It didn't take much for them to start collapsing. I was looking at snow totals for Ottawa, they get around 100+ inches for three months in a row. If I remember correctly, there are only 3 months there without recordable snow each year. They must design structures with much higher loads in mind while we can usually afford to skimp on this reguard. Roof snow removal must also be much more common and integrated as a part of the Winter, whereas we were caught by surprise by many buildings collapsing. We'll probably forget and be faced with it again in a decade when the snow totals reach extreme again.

Thanks for sharing guys. As one who makes a living building structures, I like to hear what goes on in other parts of the country and throughout the world. As far as the impact on the wood supply, it was a pain to have to remove the snow off the tarps every other day it seemed like. I even had to burn oil for some time, largely due to lack of ready wood supply. I need oil now. Last year we didn't need it until May. Today and last night, it was really windy. It caused many downdrafts due to the tall pine that now puts a damper on my livingroom install. However, I was able to get the older catalyst to reach 1000 today with all the wind induced draft. Too bad it has to blow the other way sometimes and push the smoke into the house. I can hear the gusts outside shifting and then the smoke comes out of the stove. Not backpuffing just wind driven smoke, we had the same problem with our old N/S burn camp style box stove and just straight fireplace burning.

jzr1 said:

That looks like the genzyme removal I was there. My blisters got so bad from walking in that snow/sand when I got home they were bleeding pretty bad. Haven't been able to wear boots since. Waiting for it to heal.

James Local 107

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No kidding! Chris here Local 107! Small world huh brother? Yes another Genzyme roof clean off survivor! Were you there on Sunday on the Harvey roof?

gyrfalcon said:

VCBurner said:

One thing is for sure. I will always remember this Winter of storms.

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So glad to hear you survived without injury on this job, VC!

Don't know if it was the same for you "down there," but here we had about normal snowfall for the winter, but it was all compressed into about four weeks in January/February, so it seemed like a lot worse than it was. I recently ran into an old email I'd written to a friend on January 3 of this year saying that the small amount of snow we'd gotten so far had all melted in a late December thaw and the ground was basically bare. So here about 4 feet came down just in a few weeks after that.

I will never understand why anybody, any company would put up a building with a flat roof anywhere north of say North Carolina. We don't have much in the way of codes here in VT, but any structure that's more than a couple years old and still standing has a very steep roof, most of them with metal roofing the snow easily slides off of before it gets too much. The periodic "rumble, roar, CRASH" of the snow/ice coming off is a little disconcerting, but there's no worry about structural damage.

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Thanks Gyrfalcon,
We had above average snow here. But it all came bundled, after the blizzard of 2010 during Christmas vacation we had several storms on a weekly basis until February, sometimes back to back storm fronts. I've never seen as many storms cramed into just two months. ven the local Walmarts had to close because their roofs were in danger of collapsing, you know if they are closed , it has got to be armaggedon! You guys up there in VT are more accustomed to the snow leverls we saw this year down here. You folks would have been more aware and prepared. Still doesn't make it any easier to deal with, I salute the folks who live up North.

gyrfalcon said:

Yeah, you had that crazy series of big storms. Ours came 4 or 6 inches at a time every few days, and just one 12-inch dump.

I remember years ago when I was living in the Boston suburbs the Globe was keeping track of total snowfall by measuring it against a picture of the great Bill Russell, arm upstretched for a tip-in-- 7 feet and something. As I recall, we passed him by a couple inches that year. I don't remember a lot of news or talk about roof problems, thougn, like you've had this year, maybe because it was more spread out and people had time to clear it off.

It's actually a lot easier to deal with snow in the country because there's lots of room to put it. There are many fewer miles of roads and our town road crews just shove it off into the fields. The generally colder winters mean we're not dealing with slush all winter, either.

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I think what may have been unique about this winter was the weight of the snow. We seemed to have lots of heavy "wet" snow. In the Boston area the temps never really got warm enough to thaw it as usually happens. So they had accumulation on top of accumulation. For us here in central Mass, the weather is colder so it usually doesn't melt as much. But you're right about not having anywhere to put the snow. Driving in the city of Worcester the visibility was terrible, snow banks reached way higher than usual, like 6-7 feet in some cases. City coucil talked about dumping the snow in a local lake, but later opted against it due to environmental impact. It was truly a weird Winter. I love Vermont though, we don't get to go up there as often as we'd like (the wife and I.) Our first trip together, we stayed on Sugarloaf mountain. I worked for a family of restauranteurs who bought a mansion there, they asked me to set up the newly acquired house. I took their bakery truck full of beds and furniture to move up there. It was a great weekend we will never forget. The covered bridges and charm that serve as a background to a different pace of life is just so appealing. You are lucky to be there. Thanks for the nice conversation.