GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Al Stark hasn’t received this many winter calls about leaking roofs for more than 20 years.

Stark, owner of Stark Roofing and Sheet Metal, said his business has gotten about 80 to 100 calls in Glenwood this winter, about 75 percent of them reporting water leaking through the roof.

“I haven’t seen calls like this in 25 years. This is an unusual snow year,” Stark said.
Ice building up and causing leaks is more of a problem in Glenwood than the heavy snow load is, he added.

“Ice dam leaks are normal for heavy winter snow,” Stark said. “But we usually don’t
have them. For the last 15 to 18 years, we haven’t had much leakage due to winter storms.”

He said the snow this year has exacerbated problems in all the roofs needing repair.
“I had a couple people tell me about houses where the ice is starting to come inside the house,” said Russell Wren, owner of Early Bird Landscaping and Snow. “On the edges is where it does the worst damage. It starts melting down, freezing at the end
and starts lifting up the shingles and tiles.”

Walt Stowe, of ACE Roofing, said “We’ve probably been running a dozen guys a day out for the last week and a half doing nothing but snow and ice removals in the Aspen to Glenwood area. It is a problem because if the ice builds up too high it is
going to eventually trap enough water to leak into the roof.”

He said ACE Roofing usually gets around six calls through the winter for snow and ice removal but has answered 30 this winter so far. He’s got a backlog of about 25 more calls to handle.

“The guys are getting tired of shoveling snow,” he said. “But it’s work.”
Aaron Kuhns, a city building inspector, said the building department hasn’t gotten reports about leaking roofs yet. Although he added the building department isn’t involved in minor roof repairs.

“It’s always a potential,” he said. “Roof leaks happen from ice dams and stuff like that. That doesn’t necessarily indicate the building was poorly constructed. That’s just a situation that’s created by inclement weather.”

Ice dams form when melting snow freezes, leading more snowmelt to freeze quicker and add to a buildup of ice. One of the most common spots for ice dams is where two rooftops come together, he said.

Kuhns said roof codes in Glenwood require rooftops to be capable of holding 40 pounds per square foot worth of snow.

“Just looking around I see most places have probably one to two feet of snow built up on them right now,” he said. “I would suspect that we’re not getting into that kind of weight category yet. We haven’t had any reports here that we’ve had any problems with any roofs yet.”

Snow on rooftops melts faster than snow elsewhere due to heat inside homes or buildings, he said. Older homes could be a concern, he said, adding, “Then again, I think we’ve had more snow in the past than we still have here today and a lot of those older homes have withstood that before. I’ve been here for 30 years and this is
probably pretty equivalent to some of the bigger storms that I’ve seen.”

Stowe said if someone tries to clear snow off the roof themselves, they should only shovel to three or four inches above the roof. Leaving the layer of snow helps with traction and prevents damage to the roof, he said.

“You just have to get the bulk of the weight off,” he said.

Contact Pete Fowler: 384-9121pfowler@postindependent.com




Post Independent, Glenwood Springs Colorado CO