How to Remove Snow and Ice

The Joys of Winter

Keeping your home up during the winter months can involve some snow shovelling from roofs and driveways. Its often not an easy thing, and if your not in good physical shape is best to hire someone for the job, so here is  a few ideas on how to remove snow and ice.

To Much Snow

Snow blowers make it easy to clean driveways, well at least easier then shovelling. Living in southern Quebec Canada we often get a few major snow falls. A couple of these storms and the roofs can have three feet, ninety centimeters or more of wet heavy snow on them.

Roofs

If roofs don’t have a steep enough pitch this can lead to an extreme weight on them. An example of this trailer roofs and also a few homes. Shovelling snow off roofs is not something I would recommend for the average homeowner. Having done many roofs its something you need to be very careful at.

Tools

One thing today is that we now have roof rakes, which are usually priced at about thirty dollars from your local hardware store. These are a plastic shovel twenty four inches wide that attach to aluminum poles. The poles come in five foot lengths and clip together so making it easy to reach snow on roofs, often while standing on the ground. By the way its a great invention.

Ice

Another problem here in the northern climates is ice build up, which occurs mostly in the valleys and edges of roofs. The reason for this is usually not having proper insulation in the attic, and heat from your home is escaping upward to the roof. One protection for this you can try is to purchase a heat cable which attaches to your roof  with clips supplied. This electrical cable plugs in and radiates a heat to keep ice dams from forming, and comes in different lengths.

Walkways

You might also wont to keep some sand or salt handy for ice on your walkways. If you decide on salt or other products designed for this from your local hardware store, always use sparingly as they can do damage to cement walkways and your plants, and might not good for winter birds at your feeders. Best to check the ingredients first before using. If anyone has found a natural product to use drop me a note, would be interested.

Keeping The Power On

If your area seems to lose power when ever freezing rain or high winds occur, I would recommend buying a generator. This is not something you use often but can come in handy. In nineteen ninety eight there was an ice storm here, and I lost power for two months, which was quite an experience. Ice on tree branches was two inches thick or more and you could hear branches and trees falling everywhere, it sounded like a rifle or shotgun going off every few minutes. Will have to write an article about that event another time. So this gives you an idea why a generator is needed at times.

Long Winter

Also if you find winter long and get what we call cabin fever, you can always start your own website at Wealthy Affiliate and write about whatever is of interest to you. Its free to join and is about the only place on the net that’s not a scam, so if you have any interest take a look.

Comments

If anyone has any comments or ideas about how to remove snow and ice this winter, drop me a note, have a great 2015.