This can also happen if you have metal gutters as the metal holds cold temperatures well.
Roof snow holds.
These questions aren t quite so easy to answer because there are several variables.
Well there are a lot more variables than just the amount of snow on the roof.
The idea is that as snow and ice back up against the guards it will harden and create a dam.
To figure out the load on your roof take the depth of snow in feet and multiply it by the weight of a cubic foot of snow.
Snow guards are roof mounted at spaced intervals and in two or more rows near the edge of a roof.
Instead the water refreezes creating an ice dam.
That sounds simple enough right.
These occur when snow melts off a roof into the gutters.
If the snow weighs 10 pounds per cubic foot and there are 1 5 feet on the roof each square foot of the roof is getting 15 pounds of pressure.
It calls for 20 psf throughout most of ohio and 25 psf along a north south strip in the eastern half of the state.
In turn the ice dam will prevent the mass of snow from sloughing off the roof all at once in a single avalanche.
How much snow a roof can hold depends on the type of snow roofline and material among other considerations.
How much snow can my residential roof hold.
If your roof is 1 000 square feet the total snow load is 15 000 pounds of snow.
If the gutters are blocked then the melted snow can t run away as it normally would.