Snow on the Roof

Dear Wonderful Renovation

Since the lastest storm, I'm scared to death about the snow that has built up on my roof -- both at home and on the flat roof at my business. The roof hasn't caved in -- yet -- but I have 4 questions: 1) When should I be concerned? 2)Which roof is more dangerous? 3) What can I do about the snow? 4) How about those gutter melting wires?

Sign me Chicken Little, Hyde Park

Dear Chicken,
In the old days, before insulation in the attic, so much heat escaped through people's attics that the snow barely had time to land before it melted off. As insulation gets better, snow can build up deeper.

Snow weighs differing amounts, depending on its water density. Eight inches of light, cold, powdery snow will weigh much less than six inches of wet, warmer temperature snow. What can bring the roof down is either a heavy load of snow- or a medium load of snow which then gets rained on heavily. The snow can soak up the rain and their combined weight can go through the roof -- literally.

The more pitched a roof is, the less likely the snow will cause any damage. The pressure exerted down causes the snow to overcome its friction against the roofing and slide off down the roof. Hudson Valley roofs are often built steep by design. Some older houses have slate roofs which are incredibly heavy and also very slippery when wet so that the snow can slide easily off. A granular asphalt roof is much stickier and if combined with a lower pitch, may create a condition in which a weak supporting structure is overcome by heavy snow weight. Likewise, flat roofs must deal with snow weight through brute strength.

This brings us to building inspection. As much as many people complain about having to go through the expense and trouble of filing for a building permit, this inspection process will give an expert a chance to review the type, pitch and strength of your roof to see if it meets building code and can withstand heavy snow without caving in.  A well-designed roof that has not been compromised by wood decay or insect infestation should withstand almost anything Mother Nature can dish up.

If your house or business has been built according to code, you shouldn't have too much to worry about. However, if you have questions about the quality of your roof or if you have a low pitched roof (less than 30 degrees) or a flat roof and the snow is heavy, I would consider having it professionally shoveled.

Note: Don't try to shovel the roof yourself. The top surface of snow on your roof may be soft and fluffy, offering excellent traction, but the undersurface (where your boots will actually end up) may be wet or even icy. Conditions can also change radically from location to location on your roof, depending on how the sun strikes it and the quality of the insulation underneath. For these same reasons, anyone you hire to shovel your roof should be wearing OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Act) fall protection gear. And be sure your homeowner's insurance is paid up.

You can also buy a plastic shovel on a telescoping pole that will allow you to shovel some roofs from the ground or from a ladder beside the roof. The other important criteria in shoveling a roof (beside not shoveling yourself off in the process) is to not damage the roof while removing snow. Agressive shoveling can remove the aggregate on asphalt shingle roofs, can crack the slate or tile rooves, and can tear a flat roof membrane.

Those criss-cross wires on the lower sections of people's roofs and the wires in gutters are there to prevent the condition known as icedamming. As a roof melts its snow off, snow may run down to a gutter which is frozen. This water may then back up, leaving a little ridge which then allows run-off water to pool and works it way backward underneath roofing shingles and down into the house. People address this problem by running an electric element through their gutters, which keeps the gutter from freezing up and ensures that the water will always have a passage off the roof. Using the criss-cross coils on the last feet of roofing will prevent any water from backing up underneath the shingles by keeping it all liquid and running downhill. These wires should be controlled by a thermostat.

Roofs do collapse and surpisingly, it's often steel or concrete flat roofs that do. They don't have the ability to withstand the short-term stress that wooden roofs can cope with. However, just to put this all in perspective, I checked with Don Westermeyer who is the building inspector of Hyde Park. During last winter, in and around Duchess County, several old barn roofs collapsed, an older trailer home roof collapsed, and the roof of an auto parts store fell in. According to Mr. Westermeyer, a roof in good repair that was built to modern code should be able to withstand the forty pound snow load per square foot that the Hudson River Valley is rated for. He did note, however, that roof damming did cause many interior water leak problems.

DIY Renovation Advice for the Adventurous

Dear Rusk Renovations,

I know that you recommend hiring someone to do your work; you'll get a better job at a better price, blah blah blah. Yeah, well guess what? I like to do it myself. I like the risk. I like trying something I've never done before and being able to do it. It's exciting and rewarding. If I can't do it to my own house, where can I do it?

Belligerent in Your Backyard

Dear Belligerent,

You're right. The fun things in life are those that are exciting and full of risks. Running a spinning 8-inch sharpened blade through a piece of plywood is pretty exciting if you haven't done it before and pretty cool if it actually fits the bookcase you're making.

Even laying down the drop cloths and changing the color of a room you've always hated is pretty exciting when it turns out your work changes completely what the room feels like.

In my own house, I did almost all of my own electric and plumbing work while I left the carpentry and painting to people I could hire. Now, I'm a really good carpenter and painter; but the excitement for me lay in trying to figure out how I could turn on one light from two places. Financially, it probably would have been a better decision to do things the other way around and hire professional plumbers and electricians. My relationship with my wife certainly would have been better if I would have been up in bed at 11:00 rather than screaming that another of my copper water joints was leaking.

But we crave what is new, interesting, exciting. And where better to find risk than around our house where the color we're thinking of painting could be horrific, the deck we're building might collapse with all our friends on top of it dancing to "Wild Thing", and our fingers might be pureed in our new 1 1/2 horsepower router?

The human animal likes risk. It's what makes us alive and nothing can make us more risk-averse and therefore dead than owning a house and wanting to protect our investment. My book, On Time and On Budget, is the risk-averse bible. How not to screw up your life by playing it very safe, by learning what you're doing before you do it.

How much better we like to learn what we're doing as we're doing it.

So "Belligerent," grab that piece of plywood and fire up the circular saw, grab that fan deck of color and pick a winner, find a do-it-yourself book and pick yourself a deck that makes your heart sing and- Live, Damn it, Live!

Contractor Management 101 -- Arbitration, Mediation, and Your Rights

Rusk Renovations founder John Rusk is here to answer all of your questions about renovations, choosing the best contractor, and much more.

Today, he tackles a reader question about handling a contractor dispute and tells you what you need to know about arbitration, mediation, and your contract.

 

Dear Rusk Renovations,

We're having problems with our contractor and it seems like its not getting any better. What are the options to resolving this mess? My husband is very interested in calling a lawyer but it seems like the costs will quite quickly get out of hand. We have an architect and he's tried to help but I'm not so sure that some of the fault isn't his. Probably ours too. What can we do?

Litigious on Long Island

 

Dear Litigious on Long Island,

It's too bad that its gotten to this point. First stop is your contract. If you've signed an American Institute of Architects contract, there is a section on dispute resolution. If it's the 87 version, disputes are to be resolved by the American Arbitration Association.

Arbitration is the resolution of disputes by an arbitrator. An arbitrator is someone familiar with a particular industry, who's been nominated and judged fair by his peers and has been "empaneled" by the AAA.

I've been empaneled for a few years now. People are usually represented by lawyers at an arbitration, but the qualified panel now practicing at the AAA usually sees past the lawyers' rhetoric to what probably actually happened, which is generally some cooperative dance to disaster.

An arbitration has someone else determining your fate based on the facts you give them. If you go to an arbitration, be sure you are very clear about the facts, make a very clear presentation about each of your claims and what you are asking for each of them monetarily.

Use as much objective proof (reciepts, copies of letters, witnesses, etc.) and shy away from unsubstantiated facts and disparaging comments. Don't lie. Arbitrators know their industry and they often know when they're being lied to and they don't like it. It is natural for parties to inflate their claims in anticipation of getting somewhat less than what they hoped for; just be sure you can in some way substantiate your inflation.

Arbitration can be very expensive, particularly if the case is over $100,000, which requires a three-person panel. Each panel member will be paid a day rate and it can exceed $1000 a day, though you'll be able to choose your arbitrators and can easily find many who charge less. Lawyers are very expensive and if they are thorough they can drag an arbitration out to a week. You and your adversary may end up spending $40,000 just to bury each other and end up with something very close to your last offers and counter offers.

On the other hand, a dispute under $100,000 is supposed to be completed in one day, and the arbitrator may be more willing to cut your lawyers off and push things forward to reach this goal. Both sides may still end up spending $4000 each for the privilege.

The newer AIA contract refers disputes first to mediation where a professional neutral (I'm also one of those) will meet with the parties, often without lawyers. It's a much more informal setting in which the neutral doesn't have to understand the whole problem, he or she just has to be skilled at helping the sides find agreement.

A good mediator first allows you to safely vent the anger that has built up and lets each side be heard (often for the first time), then comes up with enough settlement options until one rings a bell with both sides.

The nice part about mediation is that it usually improves the relationship (where court and arbitration only makes the two sides more adversarial). At the same time, the two sides remain in control of what they're getting. You can't "lose" a mediation. If you don't like the way the settlement is shaping up, you can walk away and try your luck at arbitration and therein lies mediation's strength. It forces both sides to seek an agreement that the other side can say "Yes" too as well or the whole process will fail and they'll end up with lawyers, an arbitrator and a lot more time wasted.

Contracts that lack these clauses can leave the parties to negotiate for one of these methods or litigate with lawyers before a regular judge. Each method has its place and there will always be disputes resolved in each of these ways, but if you can, find a neutral mediator before things go any farther.