Epic Snowfall Ate My Fascia

On Christmas day I went up onto the roof to shovel off the 3 feet of snow that fell over the last few days.(R here: this is what we call a 'widow maker move') I was worried that with the forecasted rain there could be many tonnes of waterlogged snow ready to collapse our roof.

I was pretty careful to install the gutters below the roof line to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but you can only account for so much. It seems as though it was the right combination of cold and snow to not only fill, but overflow the gutters with ice. The ice actually catches the snow as it slides off. The fascia nails were no match for a couple thousand pounds of snow and ice and it pealed the fascia right off the rafter tails.

Seems as though its a fairly common occurrence. It happened at our work site as well, although the snow only took out the gutters and not the actual fascia. At our house the gutters were the stronger unit.

I only fell off the roof once (r here... "only once"...), and that was into 6 feet of snow that I had already dispatched. Damn, that metal roof gets slippery, and when it unloads, there's no outrunning it.

As seen here in these images, Doug is now sporting a little safety gear as per the wife's request... Today is a little milder so the meter long icicles that lined this roof's gutter track have now melted. There are crushed roofs, downed power lines and imploding skylights all over the island. Fortunately our builder and contractor built this place solidly. We sleep soundly.