It has been raining since midnight. Not hard, but steadily, so that the eaves are always dripping, a rhythm track I haven’t heard for years. Someone just walked by with an umbrella, a first for my time in the eastern Sierra Nevada.
@cliffordbeshers Eavesdripping. Had to look up “eaves”. Eaves=takskjegg in Norwegian (roof-beard). There are no gutters on the houses in the Sierras?
@odd Depends on the house. Mine only has gutters over walkways, and half of those have been rotted by high UV (we're a mile high) and high winds.
@cliffordbeshers I don’t know when they started putting them up on houses over here, but I imagine around 1900. I think they are mandatory for all buildings with a slanted roof now according to the building regulations, but I’m not sure. We have generally speaking a lot of precipitation over here, so it is somewhat necessary. Most gutters are made from a tin alloy of some sorts, (nor: “blikk”), so they hold up quite a while. My grandfather was a “blikkenslager”, he worked with tin gutters and drains and things like that.
@cliffordbeshers No, not especially. There have been serious injuries and even deaths from falling icicles, but that is mostly in the city, where there are big 3-5 story houses from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s, and usually after some cold-warm cycles in the winter/spring. (February-March). Further north, and in shadowy areas it can last longer, maybe.
@odd I know some places require snow catchers to protect people walking below from ice sliding off the roof. During freeze thaw cycles, gutters reduce ice forming on sidewalks. So the requirements may be motivated by safety.
@cliffordbeshers Snow-catchers are very common on roofs downtown and in many places in the country. Gutters can take a part of it, but the huge icicles can form on gutters too, especially after a lot of snow has fallen, and then a few freeze-thaw cycles. Badly insulated roofs adds to the problem.
@odd Yeah, I've always thought there is room for improvement in roof design. I saw a Canadian builder talking about all they've learned, keeping the heat in the house with unbroken insulation on the ceiling of the top storey, with cold air flowing through the attic to keep the snow from melting off the roof, since it is such a good insulator. He implied this design was relatively new.
I feel that shaping the roof so that snow and ice don't fall on people, and water runs into valleys in the roof that lead to sisterns would reduce a lot of the maintenance required.
@cliffordbeshers For sure, “flat” roofs as we refer to them as, are for the most part a good design, (that’s what we have here where I live), but it comes with some trade offs, like either a high initial cost with copper on the roof, or increased wear with roofing felt and the foliage/pollen/elements. Sometimes the snow gets so thick and heavy that specialists have to be hired to shovel it from the roof. Compared to accidentally killing somebody with falling ice, it’s still preferable.
@odd @cliffordbeshers Flat roofs?? Don't suggest that to my wife (she's a structural/civil engineer), she gets really upset about those. From what I've understood the main risk is that the snow melts, then it freezes, and then you have a big problem.
We use gutters, and snow catchers (on larger buildings). The problem here is both snow and ice sliding off the roofs, and while accidents happens they are not too common. If it gets really bad (on the larger buildings in the city) they usually shovel the roofs. We do this on our house when we get a lot of snow, we don't need to - my wife have told me how much snow/water is needed before it's a problem from a structural point of view and it's not even close - but just because it's fun to first shovel it down and then jump from the roof down into the snow 😁
@jemostrom @cliffordbeshers The optimal building would probably be dome shaped, and have the dome rotate, and have a little skirt down at the base that could get the snow away. Would be perfect for Tornado Alley. 🌪👧🏻🐶