Preventing snow damage to gutters?

[ABCwarrior]

Last winter our new house suffered damage to all the gutters. Roof material is sheet aluminium, about 45 degrees pitch. The guttering is galvanised "lindab" system. After the first two snow episodes we thought the winter was over so I borrowed a neighbours ladders and dismantled the gutters, removed the metal clips(some were ripped off clean) and bent them back to their normal shape and refitted the whole system fine. Then it snowed again and the damage is back....
Given I had to use a fair amount of strength to bend the clips with one end down a scaffold tube would increasing the amount of clips help prevent this by better spreading out what is a considerable load? Or prior to this would I need to thoroughly screw the fascia to the ends of the pitched joists as this would now be a weak point?
I'm tempted to just remove the gutters(leaving the clips) at the start of winter because the overhang of the eaves is pretty substantial, the ground below is freely draining and the house is 300mm above GL cos it's on stilts!!!(which is allowing supercooled air to be drawn through the floor freezing the pipes but that's another thread!)

Or can anyone advise any other method or solution? I've tried dislodging the snow but on a ladder it's friggin dangerous and once ice has formed in the gutters it's a lost cause anyway...

 

[big-all]

suggest you look at the manufacturers instructions and check the spacings

spacings wrong get builders back

if correct phone them and complain as the guttering is not fit for purpose
or claim off the insurance??

 

[ABCwarrior]

Cheers Big-all, been out taking some measurements and the spacings between brackets are 72-76cm on average. On googling it I'm getting conflicting advice of 80cm spacings on one site and 60cm on another so I've emailed the company to see what they have to say definitively on the matter. If they say it's 80cm then their gutters are sh*te as their website blurb says they are Scandinavian and can withstand snow and ice! if they say it's 60cm then it's back to the builder! It's happened to our 3 neighbours too so will let them know what response I get....

 

[big-all]

thanks for the feedback so far
dont forget trading standards or consumer direct as they are called now if you dont have any joy
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

for all services just google "gov uk"

 

[SurreyRoofingEstimator]

Blimey. We've got some Lindab gutter here and it takes some welly to bend the brackets! It does sound like intermediate clips would be a good idea. Be interested to hear what Lindab say

 

[masona]

dismantled the gutters, removed the metal clips(some were ripped off clean) and bent them back to their normal shape

In what way? the whole bracket? off the fascia board as well? any photo?

Just a thought, if you're getting heavy snow maybe a snow roof guard as well?

 

[Deluks]

Just a thought, do they use these on a 45 degree pitch in Scandinavia?

Bending the clips just once will weaken the metal, and each time you bend it back it will just weaken some more. Don't expect re-bent clips to perform as good as new ones.

 

[ABCwarrior]

Most of the KSK type clips on it were bent quite badly, some just got pulled straight out of the fascia board, still bent to a degree. I thought "Hmmm must be rather weak" and tried straightening them back out by hand- impossible!! Hence putting the short end down a steel scaffold pole and bending the other with some thick gloves on...
No reply from Lindab yet. One of the contradicting sites did mention up to 38 degrees on the pitch? Maybe that nice fluffy dry Scandinavian powder snow they gets just blows off with a breeze?
At one end of the north elevation there is evidence of the fascia starting to give too. The easiest solution probably is to put a sizeable deep screw right through the fascia and into the end of every pitch joist, putting a clip on each with it(ie screw going through clip/fascia into the joist end). Not sure what the centres are and working away from home at the moment so will need to work this out when I get back. Think the clips are a few quid.
"Lindab RainlineTM Rainwater Systems
A roof drainage system designed to be corrosion resistant, easy to install and vandal resistant. The system was developed in Scandinavia to meet extreme climates experienced there"!!!!

 

[JohnD]

we don't get snow down here, but IIRC in the Alps I have seen a sort of metal post-and-rain fence fitted to the edge of the roof to prevent the snow sliding off in a great slab.

 

[ABCwarrior]

Here seems to be the definitive answer although still not heard from Lindab:

http://www.lindab.co.uk/dokumenter/roof_drainage_system_assembly_uk.pdf

Centres are 600mm! Now, I'm assuming that this figure would be the MAXIMUM allowable. On our South elevation there are 17 clips on the 12.5m gutter- it needs 22 to come under 600mm. The 3 gutters on the North side are all short by 2 clips
They've also specified that the end clips are to be fixed 100mm from the end. Ours all around the house (4 separate gutters in total) are all 150-200mm from the ends and 720-760mm is the average C-C.

So, some muppet can't follow instructions. Our neighbour has 18 clips on his South elevation so they can't even be consistent in not following instructions....

Off to email the whole lot of them, including my neighbours...

 

[ABCwarrior]

Christ it gets worse....Lindab advise that for over 10m length a gutter each end with a fall from the mid point. We have a single gutter at 9/3.5m from each end.....

 

[mointainwalker]

@ABC

In the Alps and Scandinavia, roofs incorporate snow stoppers to prevent slabs of snow slipping into the gutters, ( keeping it on roof also improves insulation)

These used to be either lengths of 3-4" trees or very substantial wrought-iron blades.

In towns the kind of edge=fencing previously mentioned is often used to stop snow/ice falling into street below.

Sounds like you;ve got a good case of "not fit for purpose" aginst the builder.

Get them to fix it whilst filling in the holes in your insulation

By the way, was the firm that did this local to the area and conversant with local conditions ?

 

[ABCwarrior]

The company that built it are a pretty well respected firm in the area. I've had no reply from the people we bought the house from after sending a lengthy detailed email last Friday. The winter we had here was pretty severe(the previous 7 saw hardly any snow and what did fall did not last or get the chance to freeze either). I still don't know if the guttering was fitted by the main contractor or subbed out, which is what I'm trying to establish. If the gutters get refitted PROPERLY to manufacturers spec and fail again then the issue really is with Lindab for their product not being suitable as they claim, and/or the architect for believing all the global warming climate change propaganda the government spouts to raise taxes for not making it snow proof.
The house is an "affordable rural home" (subsidised with a rural grant)in an area where most are holiday homes for the rich etc, but it's not a council house and I'm thoroughly hacked off with some of the workmanship I've encountered. it's as if they think we should be happy to get anything regardless of how poorly constructed it is. I'm a conservation stonemason thus have an eye for detail, plus I've done to HNC level Building so I know what is expected of each trade etc. I only wish they'd have sold us a serviced plot rather than this eco shed which looks Scandinavian but doesn't perfom Scandinavian(frozen pipes? Snow damaged gutters?!!!!), I could have done 75% of the work myself with a better kit home for half the crippling mortgage we have!!!!

 

[ABCwarrior]

Still no response to my original email, but phoned Lindab, got the area rep for Scotland's number and phoned him.
It definitely needs 2 downpipes on the South side, and 600mm is the recommended c/c in Scotland (apparently depends where in UK but south coast of England would be 800mm- where it rearely snows and the snow doesn't lie for weeks etc).
The guy was very helpful, and even advised that in extreme UK locations the c/c could even be 500 or 400mm...
The trail is leading back to the bogus architect who designed the house I think- as the single downpipe at the south side leads in to a drainage system to a soakaway on the north side. So it's not as if it's just been the contractor deciding on the day just to fit one pipe instead of two.

In an ideal world snow baffles/stoppers would be good. But knowing my luck paying for these we'd never get another harsh winter! (It's the same as the UK getting caught out by these winter episodes regarding salting roads etc- if we had a regular and predictable winters it would be easy preparing for them but in a temperate maritime environment we never know what to expect!!)
Maybe the lack of response indicates a headache for someone somewhere....!

 

[SurreyRoofingEstimator]

It does seem that a confluence of events is a major part of the issue here, a 45 degree roof slope means of course that the weight of the snow is bearing down the slope (made more apparant with a sheet metal roof) rather than onto the slope as would occur on a shallower pitch.

As you say living in a temperate climate means that whatever you do the same situation may not occur again for years so putting something like snow hooks up the roof to hold the load as they do in Scandinavia may work out as expensive for the need