US building, heat loss through roof

[mointainwalker]

EasyHeat PSR Pre-Terminated Self-Regulating Freeze Protection Cable for Water Pipes and Roofs
Wrap-On Roof and Gutter Heating Cables.Danfoss RX Roof & Gutter Deicing Cables.
Chromalox Commercial Grade Roof and Gutter Heat Trace Cable
NuHeat Plug-in 13mm Roof and Gutter De-Icing Kits. Pre-Terminated Self-Regulating Cable for roofs.
Danfoss Ice Guard Self-Regulating Pipe Heat Trace

Our blog on Roof and Gutter Heating Cable
EasyHeat PSR Pre-Terminated Self-Regulating Freeze Protection Cable for Water Pipes and Roofs
Wrap-On Roof and Gutter Heating Cables.Danfoss RX Roof & Gutter Deicing Cables.
Chromalox Commercial Grade Roof and Gutter Heat Trace Cable
NuHeat Plug-in 13mm Roof and Gutter De-Icing Kits. Pre-Terminated Self-Regulating Cable for roofs.
Danfoss Ice Guard Self-Regulating Pipe Heat Trace

Our blog on Roof and Gutter Heating Cable




If you look at the above, they all reference gutter or pipe-heating, so I don't think any of them would recommend pure roof-heating to reduce snow-load. Most areas with big snow-fall do in fact seek to maximise safe snow-load to improve natiural snow insulation.

 

[bernardgreen]

Looking at that original photo again, it does look like a work in progress on that roof.

608 is operated as a tourist attraction, the childhood home of a famous person. All renovation and conversion work on the property was completed four years ago. ( at least that is what the management team would have one believe ) When first built it had a corrogated tin ( iron ) roof.

The person who alerted me to the picture said that most other houses in the street still had snow on their roof.

I think it does come down to low cost fuel in the USA making the pay back time for the cost of insulation being very long. This seems to lead to low insulation and high heat input to compensate for the losses due to the in-effective insulation. The size of boilers ( furnaces ) in the few USA houses I have visited always seemed very large for the size of house they were heating.

 

[bernardgreen]

gutter or pipe-heating,

Several houses in Germany that had gutter / roof edge heating and snow fences along the roof. I assume the theory was to allow the snow to slide slowly as a slab to the fence where it would be melted allowing more to slide.

 

[PBC_1966]

608 is operated as a tourist attraction, the childhood home of a famous person. All renovation and conversion work on the property was completed four years ago. ( at least that is what the management team would have one believe ) When first built it had a corrogated tin ( iron ) roof.

Fair enough - Hard to see the detail so I guess what looks like battening is a feature of the finished roof. Maybe with it being just a tourist spot they haven't been too fussy about increasing the insulation as other homes in the street?

The size of boilers ( furnaces ) in the few USA houses I have visited always seemed very large for the size of house they were heating.

Do you mean the BTU rating, or the physical size? If the latter, don't forget that many also incorporate air-conditioning facilities for the summer.

As in the U.K. though, there can certainly be some skimping sometimes to keep installation costs to a minimum. In our place we moved into last year, for example, we have the typical combination gas furnace and air-conditioning HVAC unit, ducted to ceiling outlets around the house. While there are dampers on each register for manual control, it was installed with just a single thermostat in a hallway at one end of the house (about 1680 sq. ft. in total, excluding non-ducted garage), and that was fitted right underneath the return air duct for the system. One project on my list is to fit multiple thermostats, add motorized dampers in the ducting and turn it into a zoned system for better control - And to avoid having to heat/cool the entire house all the time when it's not necessary.

 

[PBC_1966]

Ta- makes me chuckle seeing numbers on mailboxes that are pretty much in the middle of nowhere (UK definition at least). Especially numbers that big.

That was our old mailbox, and you can thank the grid numbering system for the high number. Here in Shasta County the numbering in unincorporated areas for east-west running roads starts at the western edge of the county and increases eastward. So you can tell we weren't exactly in the western part of the county there.....