Family Work Day

A while back Jeff had the great idea of getting the families together to share some work at each others places.

After much coordination, the first of such days was executed this weekend.

The main objective was to do “something” about our solar panel snow avalanche issue. It’s really two issues. When we get enough snow, it all slides off the panels at once and avalanches over the roof/gutter and onto the ground below. The second issue is when we get a whole lot of snow and it piles up on the roof/gutter at the base of the panels. Eventually it rips/bends the gutter and avalanches onto the ground/sidewalk below.

The “fix” was to install an electric heated roof cable (made for ice dams) to help minimize the accumulation of snow between the panels and roofs edge; therefor, reducing the impact of the snows weight on the gutter and the avalanches that are still going to fall.

That’s right. We’re still going to have avalanches, but hopefully not as bad or destructive.

Why?

The lighter snows (like the couple of inches we got in October) are light enough to slide right off the panels and over the gutter. Not sure what to do about them. The heavy snows (the ones that pile up on the panels and the roof) create snow dams in the space between the panels and the gutter. Once they get too heavy or too big, they fall off the roof causing damage to the gutter and possibly anyone walking on our sidewalk. The thought behind the heated cable is that it will melt the snow dams, thus reducing the snows weight on the gutter and maybe preventing the large avalanches. Instead they’ll just melt into the gutter.

That’s the theory at least.

Unfortunately the cable only reached the length of the sidewalk and porch. Sure pedestrians are somewhat protected now, but my gutter is still at risk beyond the cable. What kind of risk? The worst part of last years damage was beyond the sidewalk. The snow ripped off two leaf guards and pulled the gutter away from the roof requiring me to replace 4 gutter screws. This was after only 1 year of solar panel ownership.

Eh. 2 leaf guards and a couple of screws. What’s the big deal? Fixing it required renting a $50 ladder and the help of a friend to haul and stabilize the ladder. That’s not exactly something I’ll look forward to every year.

At this point I’m kind of stuck. I could get a longer cable to replace the one I installed. I could get a second cable to finish the difference or I could just wait and see if it even works. The first two require renting the ladder again and getting help. The third requires nothing. I’m leaning towards nothing unless someone has a better idea.

ps. you may remember last spring I got a notice from the Home Depot claiming no responsibility for such issues regarding solar panels and snow. Obviously this is an issue in our part of the country and I’m sure someone has some ideas, though googling doesn’t turn up much. Most people are concerned with removing the snow from their panels. That’s not really my problem. The other issue the Home Depot claimed no responsibility for was leaves and critters getting under your panels. During yesterdays work I confirmed this is indeed an issue with our panels. Though I didn’t see any critters, there certainly is an accumulation of leaves. Maybe next spring we can have another family work day and I can coordinate the installation of some kind of leaf guard around my panels. Won’t that be fun?

This was just a fun/tricky shot taken during the day.

No photoshopping or anything on that one.

In addition to the cable we also got a majority of the hedges trimmed, some leaves raked & mulched and I continued work on the downstairs.

Only two more sheets of drywall (this shot taken before I managed to get up 2 of the 4 left) and we might have our family room back.

Next family work day will be at Jeff’s. Hopefully Abigail and I can get out in the next month or so after the baby is born and help Jeff with some of his projects.

– b