Should You Remove Snow From Your Roof?

Most roofs carry a normal Central Oregon winter fine. They were designed to. So the honest answer to “should I remove the snow” is usually no, and the useful question is “when does no become yes.”

When it’s time to call

• The snow turns wet and heavy. Rain on top of a deep snowpack, or a warm spell that soaks it, can double the weight without changing the depth. Depth alone tells you very little.
• Ice is building at the eaves. Thick icicles or a bar of ice along the gutter line means an ice dam is forming and meltwater is backing up under the shingles.
• Water shows up inside. A stain, a drip, a damp spot in the attic. That’s not a snow problem anymore; that’s a leak, and the snow is feeding it.
• The roof is low-pitch or flat, and the snow just isn’t leaving on its own.

The signs that mean call right now

New cracks in the ceiling or drywall. Doors or windows that suddenly stick. Creaking, popping or cracking sounds from the roof. A visible sag in the roofline or in the framing you can see from the attic. Any of those means the structure is telling you something. Get people out of that part of the house, call us, and if it looks serious call a structural engineer too. Snow removal takes the load off; it doesn’t tell you what the roof can carry. Oregon designs roofs to the snow load at each site, which is why there’s no single “safe depth” number; the state’s building code page explains it.

If you’d rather do it yourself

A roof rake, from the ground, on the lower few feet of the roof. Stop a couple of inches short of the shingles; scraping down to the roof takes the granules with it and shortens the roof’s life. Never get on a snowy roof, never chip at ice with tools, and keep everyone out from under the eaves while you work, because what you rake comes down fast.

What professional removal looks like

When it’s snowing and the dams are building, we go up. We clear the snow, cut ice dams back without touching the shingles under them, and stay clear of skylights, vents and anything else that doesn’t want a shovel on it. We work with someone watching the ground, because a slab of roof snow will flatten a fence or a car. It’s priced hourly and depends on the roof and how much is up there; we’ll quote it when you call.

We also look for contributing roof issues. Heat loss, insulation, air leaks, ventilation and weather can all play a part in ice dams. We’ll explain roofing concerns we find and discuss whether other parts of the home need assessment. Here’s how ice dams work.

Snow piling up? See roof snow and ice removal. Water already inside? Start with roof repair.