Snow brakes for steel roofing

[grsthegreat]

the contractor that built my 30 x 60 shop installed snow guards over the two 16 foot roll up doors. the first winter after install we had a hard winter. all the snow on remainder of shop shed except this area behind the guards. finally the guards ripped out of the roof. I had to patch about 30 holes on my new roof.

the contractor had gone out of business and insurance deductible was too high to replace the roof. i will NEVER allow snow guards to be installed on my roofs again.

 

[KRBrouwer]

Going into the second winter for our barn, I'd like to add some "snow brakes" over the doorways to prevent snow from sliding off the roof and on our heads, or even worse, on the horses on their way through the doorway. Having a hundred pounds of wet snow land on them would be a sure way to sour a horse on doorways.

According to our building supply store, each 8 foot doorway would be about $300 to cover with a commercially available brake. I'm thinking that all they are is a triangle or "L" shaped bracket with holes drilled through them for steel tubing. I think three brackets per doorway, with 2 or three runs of 3/4" galvanized conduit would do the trick. The brackets bolt onto the roof deck with the pipes running through them parallel to the ground.

View attachment 285478

Any other thoughts?

Sean

I had the person who installed the steel roof on our house bend the L angles out of the flashing material that was used on our house. He doubled the material then bent it into an L shape. He placed them just above one row of screws (my roofing is screwed in on the peaks), and then screwed into the peak. This was a LOT less expensive that any of the commercially available solutions, and looks very clean. We never get much over 2-3 inches of snow here, so I only have a single row.

Ken