Snow Load And Live Load For Roofs In Virginia

The roof or the entire structure can fail if the snow load exceeds the weight the building was designed to shoulder.

Snow load and live load for roofs in virginia. To figure out the load on your roof take the depth of snow in feet and multiply it by the weight of a cubic foot of snow. Or if the building was poorly designed or constructed. Further in most areas of the united states design winds are produced by either hurricanes or thunderstorms. A great deal of confusion currently exists among engineers architects recreation specialists and maintenance personnel concerning the proper snow loading to use for the design and maintenance of trail bridges building roofs and other structures in mountainous high snow load areas.

The roof shall be designed for the live load indicated in table r301 6 or the snow load indicated. The north zone middle zone and the south zone are identified on the roof load zone. For locations where snow loading should be considered in the design of spatial structures it is generally considered as the roof live load. Roof load live load design is affected by the shape of the roof whether it is flat curved or pitched.

The minimum design roof snow load. Roof loads are a downward vertical force on the home. Snow load is the downward force on a building s roof by the weight of accumulated snow and ice. However a south roof load zone home cannot be installed in either a middle or north roof load zone.

This issue of live load vs. How snow load can damage your buildings. If the snow weighs 10 pounds per cubic foot and there are 1 5 feet on the roof each square foot of the roof is getting 15 pounds of pressure. Why snow load information.

If your roof is 1 000 square feet the total snow load is 15 000 pounds of snow. Ground snow load might seem somewhat confusing until you read the basic premise that is identified in irc section r301 6 which states. Arch 331 note set 13 1 s2014abn 2 determining dead load from material weights. Schilke civil agricultural engineering montana state university august 1989.

Axial forces from snow loads and roof live loads should usually not be considered simultaneously with an extreme wind load because they are mutually exclusive on residential sloped roofs. Spatial structures are mostly used as roof systems therefore roof load is considered as the live load. Victor staley a building official in the town of brewster mass responds.