Roof raking is generally best as an ongoing winter long task that you the property owner can perform as a way of keeping the snow off your roof.
Get the snow off the roof.
Removing snow from your roof is a slippery undertaking.
It does happen and it s a shame when it does.
An alternative way to remove snow from your roof.
Never use rock salt for this as it will do more damage to your roof than it will to the ice.
With your roof check your flashing shingles and asphalt underlay to make sure everything s tight and there s no damage that you missed and install a guard such as gutter helmet on your rain gutters to allow ice and snow to slide off the roof while catching water.
Instead of pulling the snow off your roof you re just sliding under the snow with a tarp that causes it all to glide off of your roof.
If your home has a roof with a substantial pitch ice dams and clogged gutters can still prevent snow from sliding off.
Heavy loads of wet snow can eventually lead to shingle damage stress on load bearing walls and even roof collapse.
However it doesn t happen the majority of the time so don t conclude that raking your roof is a waste of time.
If you live in a small one story home you can probably use a roof rake to reach most or all of your roof and keep it snow free by routinely raking the snow off.
Stand as far back from the edge of the roof as possible so snow or ice doesn t fall on top of you as you re raking.
Nonetheless you can get a rough estimation of what the snow weighs by eyeballing its depth as it sits on your roof.
For instance the experts at house logic report that six inches of wet snow is equal to the weight of about 38 inches of dry snow this gives you some idea of how heavy the stuff really is.
This will get most of the snow off your roof but the downside is the time and the cost.
Unfortunately sometimes you can rake ten feet of snow off your roof and still get an ice dam right where you stopped raking higher up on your roof.
Avoid using a metal rake as this can scrape your roof and cause damage.
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Alternatively you can fill paper bags with calcium chloride and toss them up on to the roof just above the ice dam.