Snow load

[AKmark]

It is amazing how much weight two pieces of plastic can hold hen they're poofed up with a fan. I finally got scared and put some heat to them to get the load off, there was probably 15+ inches on them

[greenthumbomaha]

After reading your posts and seeing all the beautiful homes on the water on the cable real estate shows I was dreaming of spending a year there and a year in Florida.

Fairbanks made our news here with everything freezing over. This brought me right back to reality. Its good that you are there to protect your property. At least you are over the winter hump and have gardening to keep your mind focused.

- Lisa

[ddsack]

That was a healthy dump of snow! Glad your greenhouses survived so well, but it sure is discouraging to know that it will take that much longer to see bare ground in the spring.

[Ricky Shaw]

Dozens of mini-avalanches breaking off, sliding down and crashing. Whish! Boom.

[AKmark]

Fairbanks is about 300 miles north, very harsh winters, nice summers though.

It can snow up through May, but it melts super fast, sometimes we just go from winter to summer. LOL Usually April and May are chilly, but sunny, nice for heated greenhouse growing.

I was entertained by the mini avalanches. lol

[Cole_Robbie]

The strength of the plastic is actually the problem. It's strong enough to pull down the structure when it collapses.

The pics below are how I know that. These pics are from three years ago. I put everything back together with the old materials. I'm a little lumpy now, but the collapse cost me about thirty bucks. Now I know to take the plastic off in the winter. This was a freak storm, ten inches of mostly ice pellets. My Clearspan building survived it; my top rail high tunnel did not.

[AKmark]

That is not good Cole Robbie. You guys can get some bad storms, I remember the 77-78 blizzards over in southern Indiana. I cannot fathom the strength of plastic, it hates tree branches, but is tuff for sure. lol How have the winters been the last several years?
Maybe consider some trusses if you want to keep plastic on, then you can store some stuff in it too. If you do a simple Kings post truss system, they will take the snow, and you can hang stuff from the trusses too. I worry the most about the winds, every year we get a couple nasty storms.

[AlittleSalt]

I've been reading this thread today. We get snow here in this part of Texas maybe once or twice a year and 4 inches is a lot of snow for these parts. What really messes things up here is ice storms. Freezing rain is (to me) worse than sleet. Freezing rain followed by temperatures dropping well below freezing brings a lot of tree limbs and power lines down.

We haven't had a bad freezing rain storm like that for several years, but it'll happen again. That's why we have both propane and electric heaters - just in case.

I don't have a green house, but am wondering how ice storms effect greenhouse's?

Greenhouse - they used to be green. I guess they are Hothouses now?

[FourOaks]

All these pictures of snow shiver me timbers. Exactly the reason why I like living in the south. I can deal with the heat. Snow, not so much.

Speaking of, its a chilly 54 this morning.

[PhilaGardener]

Glad you got that snow off! Made me feel better, at least

[whoose]

6000 feet in the northern Rockies, just another snow storm.

[Cole_Robbie]

There really ought to be such a thing as greenhouse plastic which contains a netting of heating filaments. Just plug in the cord when it snows, and the plastic heats up enough to melt off the snow.

[AKmark]

Still snowing here, by looking at others posts, I am not alone, TOGETHER WE STAND AS ONE. LOL

[Jimbotomateo]

Does it get muddy up there after the melt Mark?

[AKmark]

Yes, before the ground thaws it is very muddy, as soon as it thaws the water instantly vanishes. We bury our water lines 10' or deeper, it takes awhile for it to thaw.