Snow Roof Degree

The minimum roof pitch for shedding snow is around 30 or a 6 12 or 7 12 slope although this is not a definite as the material of your roof the direction of the snow and wind are some factors that can affect whether or not snow will slide as roofs of as little as 10 have been reported to shed snow.

Snow roof degree.

The easiest and most common sense approach is to keep the roof as simple as. Building a roof with wood shakes works well in moist colder climates as they don t dry out from the snow. Rise run rise run slope. Slate is also a popular material in this climate zone.

Besides being able to support the weight of all that snow a roof needs to be designed to avoid ice dams sliding snow excessive icicle formation and drainage onto high traffic areas. Steeper slopes increase the sail effect that makes them susceptible to wind. To do this simply convert the rise and run as a fraction to a decimal form eg. First convert the pitch to a slope.

And although asphalt shingles are the easiest to damage among the roofing materials they are another good option for snow as long as your climate isn t too windy. The 30 degree 7 12 roof recommendation is backed up by testing according to the publication science daily. How to convert roof pitch to degrees. If you live in the us our snow load calculator compares the total weight on your roof with the permissible load calculated according to the standards issued by the american society of civil engineers regarding the minimum design loads for buildings and other structures asce7 16.

It is not uncommon in our area to have several feet of snow on a roof in the winter.