Decks and Snow- Question

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Forgive me if this sounds like a stupid question:

I am a first time homeowner and we have had a lot of snow here. Like my neighbors, I have not shovelled the deck. The driveway was bad enough and I live on my own! Plus, the dogs have had no trouble getting up and down. But we are now on our third snow fall and I've noticed over a foot of snow on the deck with more coming down. I'm wondering if I need to go ahead and clear it off due to the weight. How much weight can a deck typically handle? Should I be worried about the snow? I tried to Google it, but only came up with results on how to clear snow from a deck, nothing about whether or not the deck can handle the weight.

 

[CowboyCO]

I live in the mtns of Colorado and I have up to 4 feet of snow on our deck with no problems. If it was built to meet code, there are no worries.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Thanks! I never really paid attention to what my parents did when I lived at home. I'm just don't want to accidentally screw something up!

 

[barkley]

if you can, clear the snow.

despite weather your deck meets the code for your area it may not (or the code may be insufficient) be strong enough to handle the snow.

i say this because last december i happened to be talking to a friend. she owns a home with a deck that is on her first floor (raised so it becomes like a patio roof if you exited from her basement). one evening when she and her husband were in the livingroom (which opens onto the deck) they heard what sounded like 2 or 3 shotgun blasts. immediatly after the sound they were horrified to see their deck shear off the side of their home, taking the sideing with it. fortunatly noone was injured.

their deck code wise exceeded not only the normal snowload weights for our area but also the amount of weight that was later determined to have been on the deck.

a few weeks later (a year ago this week) i was up late one nite dis'ing and heard similar sounding 'blasts' come from my living room. cautiously i waked toward it and peered around. i saw only hairline cracks in the ceiling drywall but having heard what happened to my friend i called the fire department. the fire department responded and immediatly evacuated us b/c all the support beams INSIDE the roof (newer home) had cracked and broken. our roof had not only met but exceeded the code and the snowfall amounts.

in spokane county the code was changed years ago to be higher than what was considered maximum necessity but with last years multitude of deck of roof collapses the county is looking to raise the requirement even higher to ensure greater safety.


one of the things that realy did allot of decks and roofs in around here, was we had small raises in temperature between snowfalls so snow would start melting, but then the temp would drop at night and that melted snow became solid ice. you have this happen over time and what can look like just a foot of snow can be 10" of solid ice covered in snow-and solid ice is HEAVY.

we've taken to clearing the snow from structures like decks as soon as we reasonably can.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

if you can, clear the snow.

despite weather your deck meets the code for your area it may not (or the code may be insufficient) be strong enough to handle the snow.

i say this because last december i happened to be talking to a friend. she owns a home with a deck that is on her first floor (raised so it becomes like a patio roof if you exited from her basement). one evening when she and her husband were in the livingroom (which opens onto the deck) they heard what sounded like 2 or 3 shotgun blasts. immediatly after the sound they were horrified to see their deck shear off the side of their home, taking the sideing with it. fortunatly noone was injured.

their deck code wise exceeded not only the normal snowload weights for our area but also the amount of weight that was later determined to have been on the deck.

a few weeks later (a year ago this week) i was up late one nite dis'ing and heard similar sounding 'blasts' come from my living room. cautiously i waked toward it and peered around. i saw only hairline cracks in the ceiling drywall but having heard what happened to my friend i called the fire department. the fire department responded and immediatly evacuated us b/c all the support beams INSIDE the roof (newer home) had cracked and broken. our roof had not only met but exceeded the code and the snowfall amounts.

in spokane county the code was changed years ago to be higher than what was considered maximum necessity but with last years multitude of deck of roof collapses the county is looking to raise the requirement even higher to ensure greater safety.


one of the things that realy did allot of decks and roofs in around here, was we had small raises in temperature between snowfalls so snow would start melting, but then the temp would drop at night and that melted snow became solid ice. you have this happen over time and what can look like just a foot of snow can be 10" of solid ice covered in snow-and solid ice is HEAVY.

we've taken to clearing the snow from structures like decks as soon as we reasonably can.

Wow, that is frightening! So do you clear it from your roof to? I can't imagine doing that.

 

[barkley]

our roof is pitched such that we have to have it professionaly done, and so far this year we've had very little snow so far.

the contractors who did the repair for the insurance company got the insurance company to buy in to increasing the roofs weight baring capacity WAY above even what the county is now proposing, so idealy it won't be an issue in the future. we did get the names of some professionals that do roof snow removal and have them on hand (note-if you hire someone to do it, make sure they are licensed and bonded-we were cautioned by our homeowner's insurance company that if they were'nt and slipped off our roof and injured themselves or caused damage to our roof we could end up with major medical bills and roof repairs our insurance would'nt cover).

 

[jmkjr72]

i would clear both you are in a souther climate and your codes dont have much of a snow load built into them
wet snow can be very heavy just this winter my grill colapsed under the weight of the snow from the blizzard we had
heck even here in ne wi we have roofs and decks collapse ever yeare becasue of the snow
and its not just the weight of the snow for wanting to remove the snow but you can actualy get ice dams and have water damage as the snow melts

 

[scrapquitler]

We shovel the deck and we rake the roof.

 

[mickeyboat]

I would try to shovel it if I were you. All it takes is a very heavy snow or a bunch of rain to greatly increase the weight load, and it can collapse.

 

[wdwfan16]

Shovel it off.

 

[dislal]

I shovel mine and it is up pretty high like my second floor is actually my first floor like a PP was talking about. So even though I know my deck is up to code I still shovel it because that is always in the back of my head that some night I will hear it ripping off of the side of the house.

I really never thought about the snow on my roof though. HMMM!!!