Do you wonder about your roof in Calgary during these heavy snowfalls?
March is usually a month with the biggest snowfall within a year, but this year it’s been breaking records. In a 
range of couple of days Calgary got hit by a whole month load of snow causing chaos in traffic with probably hundreds of accidents and sore arms and backs for unhappy Calgarians who had to shovel their ways out of their homes.
Some parts of the city got covered by 30 cm of new snow adding up to what was already on the ground and making some homeowners wonder how much snow their roof can actually hold.
According to NRCC the roof should support minimum of 21 pounds per square foot of combination of snow and rain load.
Ten inches of fresh snow equate to about five pounds per square foot (source USAToday).
Let’s dust off some math skills now. So if you have 20 inches of snow on your roof that is about 10 pounds per square foot, which is still fine.We are talking about the fresh snow though, if there is old snow or ice you can get to double or more of this weight.
If your roof is properly built it should be able to withstand this amount of snow, roofs usually don’t collapse just because of the heavy load but mainly because of poor construction and lack of maintenance.
The workmanship of your roofer will be put in test in these extreme conditions and it’s worth understanding what roofers really offer you in their estimates, sometime paying a few more bucks can save you money and headache in the long run.
You may consider removing snow from your roof, in this case we recommend calling professionals to do it for you, the risk of injury is high as you can see in the video below.
So stay warm and safe and hopefully this winter is coming to an end soon.
If you need a new roof this year in Calgary or Okotoks please call us for an estimate.
