After shoveling several feet of snow from his roof on Winter Street in Auburn on Thursday afternoon, Jeremy Chapman hammers away at ice that has built up around the eaves of his house. “I want to make sure there is no damage because of the weight or leakage,” he said. “I have been out straight since the beginning of winter doing it not only for my job, but I want to take care of my tenants and my own house.”
LEWISTON — If you’ve ever wondered why you have to shovel the snow off your roof, consider this from Jeremy Chapman: “If you have an ice dam or a roof collapse, you’ll quickly be paying much more than having your roof shoveled.”
Chapman, who owns 4 Seasons Property Services in Auburn, said, “You need to do this for the safety and security of your house.”
On Wednesday, Chapman took a break from his plowing and sanding operations to shovel the snow off the roof of his own home, preparing for more snow forecast for this weekend.
“They said it was going to be a snowy winter, but they didn’t say it would be all at once,” he said.
And, it’s not necessarily the amount of snow that’s been such a problem. It’s been the windy storms, creating weighty snowdrifts on residential and commercial roofs.
“That’s the biggest headache,” he said, and the most compelling reason to clear the snow.
Others agree, including Art Burhoe of South Paris, a roofer with Industrial Roofing in Lewiston.
“This is absolutely serious,” he said, because the damage from heavy snow and ice dams can be extreme. And, he said, there are plenty of day laborers willing to clear snow, but home and business owners must be careful about hiring because improper snow removal can damage shingles, skylights, HVAC housing and other components of a roof.
Industrial Roofing specializes in commercial buildings, and has a regular client list for employees to measure and weigh accumulations of snow and ice. When that measure comes close or exceeds the pounds per square foot rating for a particular roof, the snow is removed.
In some buildings, that measure can be seen from inside where plumb bobs hang from a rope to measure sag in the roof. When the sag “gets to a critical point, they get people up there and get the roofs cleared,” Burhoe said.
He called the snow now piled on roofs more serious than he’s seen in the past, and not because of the amount of snow. It’s because of snow blowing across open roofs, creating drifts as tall as 14 feet that are heavy and difficult to clear.
These drifts are blocking vents, drains and covering HVAC (heat, ventilation and air conditioning) units, he said, all of which must be kept clear to maintain air quality inside buildings.
On Wednesday, he and another employee were removing ice dams on a metal roof that Burhoe estimated were between 14 and 18 inches thick, and which had climbed three feet up from the edge of the roof.
“There’s no easy way to do this,” he said. It’s manual labor to break the ice and to shovel, rake and clear the snow, sometimes over the sides of buildings and often into a waiting bucket loader. He said people have to be careful about loading too much snow toward roof edges because that can cause metal walls to buckle.
The worry about snow cave-ins is real, Burhoe said, because of potential damage and injury from snow, but also because when a roof collapses, “there’s nowhere for the air to escape. It’s no different than a bomb going off, a shock wave.”
According to industry experts, most insurance policies will cover damage from a roof collapse, but if an insurance company determines lack of maintenance contributed to the cave-in, the damage may not be fully covered.
In Turner, Gammon Landscaping owner Rick Gammon said this year’s collection of snow on roofs “is about the worst I’ve seen. When we get this other storm that they say is coming, that’s going to be as very bad as it’s ever been.”
He has two employees working snow removal and takes calls throughout Androscoggin County. Jobs are typically quoted by the hour, and because every roof is different, Gammon said it’s tough to say what an average job might cost.
Chapman, in Auburn, said the price runs in the hundreds of dollars, and professionals use tools and equipment that most homeowners don’t have to clear snow as quickly as possible.
He hasn’t been able to keep up with all of the calls because he’s been so busy with customers who need snow cleared from lots and roads, but a break in the weather Tuesday and Wednesday allowed him to catch up a bit.
Even with the workload, Chapman isn’t tired of the snow. A native Mainer, he snowshoes, goes winter camping and likes snow hiking. He’s preparing to build the igloo for the third annual Ice Festival of Lewiston-Auburn, to be held at Fountain Plaza in Lewiston on Feb. 20-22.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
