Snow drifting on roof, ideas?

[rwhite]

My home is aligned directly with the prevailing wind. The back side of the roof is all on one plane and I have no drifting issues. On the front side the garage is a few feet lower than the rest of the roof. Consequently the snow falls off the ledge and drifts all winter. Sometimes 4' deep as you can see in the picture. Any bright ideas to prevent this? I've been thinking of putting some type of ramp or snow brake along the drop off roof line to lift the snow and possibly carry it over the far edge. Any ideas?

 

[peakbagger]

This is pretty standard problem, in commercial buildings, the framing has to be beefed up to carry the extra load from this type of drifting, few residential builders worry about it. Obviously, occasionally hitting it with a snow rake works pretty well. Heating tape designed for ice damming would work to melt it off but its a pricey solution. Most people leave the heat tape on 24/7 but turning it on on sunny days after a storm may be enough to get it melting

 

[rwhite]

I've tried some heat tape temporarily. That just created a tunnel but the drift remained. I've never had a structural issue with drifting, just annoys me to look at a 4' drift and the rest of roof has a few inches. I do rake it on occasion.

 

[Max W]

A Maine guy invented a mighty slick rig, pun very much intended, to work in a way opposite of a roof rake. Insread of trying to drag the top off the snow it undrer cuts it and the loosened snow slides down on a slippery material. I haven’t seen them sold. It uses a bar with upturned ends and maybe poly tarp fabric on the end of a pole. A piece of flat bar along with the pole from a roof rake and a strip of poly tarp can have snow sliding off the roof in short order. A little stouter pole might be good for packed drifts as would getting them early. Here is a sketch of what worked well for the roof of my previous house.

Correction on the sketch. The poly tarp material should go over the braces and pole. They should be in dashed lines

 

[rwhite]

I

A Maine guy invented a mighty slick rig, pun very much intended, to work in a way opposite of a roof rake. Insread of trying to drag the top off the snow it undrer cuts it and the loosened snow slides down on a slippery material. I haven’t seen them sold. It uses a bar with upturned ends and maybe poly tarp fabric on the end of a pole. A piece of flat bar along with the pole from a roof rake and a strip of poly tarp can have snow sliding off the roof in short order. A little stouter pole might be good for packed drifts as would getting them early. Here is a sketch of what worked well for the roof of my previous house.

Correction on the sketch. The poly tarp material should go over the braces and pole. They should be in dashed lines

View attachment 302602

I've got one of those. They are still a pain to use and the area that it drifts is right in front of the garage door. Trying to move the snow once it's fallen off the roof and packed is also a pain. Trying to see if there's a method to keep it from happening in the first place, or at least reduce it. I may have a length of snow brake that I can run vertical down the ridge and see if that helps.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I think it's just an issue you're going to have to stay on top of. You could raise the roof pitch, but that's pretty involved. I'd rake the roof for a long time before I altered the roof.

 

[zrock]

you have a couple of options. Run a heat tape and use your roof rake to beat down the tunnel it creates so it will just melt off the snow. Or raise the roof. Iv seen that since i was a kit and never seen a roof fail because of it and iv been around a long time..LOL