Snow guards are those…you know…’thingies’ you see at the edge of a roof. And I love them. But what are they for?
I usually see snow guards on old houses and they make a roof look interesting. With all kinds of different shapes like stars, eagles, fleur-de-lis, and more. They’re cool.
Snow guards are also hard workers. They hold hundreds of pounds of snow snow on your roof—and off your bushes, gutters and, not incidentally, your head.
Why would you want snow on your roof after a storm? Snow is heavy. When it falls in clumps off the roof, its damaging and dangerous. Many of us have emerged from Winter’s grip to find a foundation plant smashed. Or a gutter ripped off. The shrub was damaged because snow fell on it like a mortar shell. The gutter: It’s not designed to hold up a snow bank.
Snow guards minimize this kind of damage by holding the snow pack on the roof until it melts and runs off as non-shrub (and gutter- and person-) crushing liquid.
The reason older houses, or houses with polymer roof tiles like the DaVinci Roofscapes on our house, need snow guards is that they have little “snow retention”. In other words, they’re smooth. And this is good. Really good. Rain runs off without picking up granules that settle into gutters. Dirt and stains (like algae and stuff) have nothing to grab so you have a clean roof for the rest of your life. And—little granules, i.e. what the roof is made of—aren’t running into the gutters.
And speaking of gutters, they can hide awesome molding sometimes like the Fypon crown molding we trimmed a porch with. On this project we dispensed with the gutter and added a diverter—which we love. And it doubles as a snow guard.
We used aluminum coil stock and bent it in a V about 2-inches tall. Tucked under the tiles above and tapered to allow the water to run off, it creates a waterfall on each side of the porch when it rains. It holds the snow in winter. And it showcases the crown molding a gutter would otherwise hide.
So if you’re thinking Winter or putting on a new roof, think ahead. A roof that’ll last a life time is a good bet. And a roof with snow guards that releases clean water on your landscape—both as rain and snow melt—is safe and sweet looking.
Last winter one of my rain gutters was bent by the weight of the snow. I had no idea that snow guards were so effective at minimizing damage by holding the snow pack on the roof until it melts. I’ll definitely take your advice and install snow guards on my roof before next winter.
I don’t have snow guards, but it might be nice to get them. I live in an area where it snows a lot. I have been worried about the snow causing some damage at some point. It doesn’t look like these would be too hard to install. I kind of like the look of the roof on that home in the picture.