Ken:

In looking at the design snow loads for NYS (from the building code) I see
that the highest square foot design load, not surprisingly, is upstate. 90
pounds in the Tug Hill area 80 pounds north of Amsterdam.  Down your way it
is 30 pounds.

Two feet of water would be of the order of 125 pounds per square foot (62.4
pounds per cubic foot).  That would be a REAL BAD THING unless the
structural engineer went pretty wild with the safety factor.  It sounds like
the roof support structure was holding up worse than the roof itself.
Amazing.  I think I would've tried some sort of a siphon approach until it
got down to at least one foot deep.

Roofs loaded unequally (like your shop) are a problem too.  My structural
engineering friend tells me they take this into account (snow blowing over
from one side to the other, for instance)  when they do a serious design but
most roofs (like my large garage where I just said something like, "yep
gimme 40 pound live load, 20 pound dead load, 10 pound bottom chord
trusses") are figured with a balanced load (maybe there is a safety factor
in there of some sort for the unequal loading).

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Follett [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 4:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: I'm in the gutter


Our shop is spit with office on one side and uninsulated warehouse on the
other. The office area had 5' of snow drifted and the uninsulated side was
clear of snow. The heat on the unisulated side, kept at minimum above
freezing, melted the snow.


Then there are those owners who never think to clean their drains on a flat
roof with parapets. It is no hyperbole that I have been on roofs with ponds
with 2' of standing water. It is a nervous situation when you see them, and
worse when you have to walk around on them.
][<en

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