Too Much Snow – 80+ Inches and Counting…

Been trying to get the next step done on our passive and active solar dream home.  Unfortunately, the weather here in Deer Park (just north of Spokand Washington) has not been cooperating.

We have more than 4 feet standing in the fields on our 15 acres and a layer of ice on the roads and driveways.  Looks like it will be late Spring or even Early Summer before we get the road updated and the water well put in.

Oh well, I guess it gives me a chance to update the home design and do more research into the latest solar products and on grid systems.

One thing that all this snow has shown me…

I need to make sure that my roof can support record snow depths and that I need to increase my roof slope more to help get the snow to come off the roof on it’s own.  I’ve shoveled more snow in the last week than I have in the last 10 years.  Most of the hard shoveling came in clearing off my inlaws and sister-in-laws roofs which have very little slope.

One of the tractor sheds that we skipped at my father-in-laws house near our propery colapsed the other day and pushed the roof air conditioner that was on top their RV right through the top of it’s roof.  We thought that the medium slope would be enough to slide it off on it’s own… we were wrong!

So, my house plans are being adjusted to get a higher pitch on the roof than i initially had planned.  I’ll also be increasing the max load it can hold, just to be on the safe side.

I’ll try and get more of my plans on the site so you can see what we have in mind soon.  We are trapped at my folks house in Tacoma right now with all passes closed due to flooding and avalanches as well as the south I-5 freeway to Portland closed due to flooding.

We’ll see what the next couple of days brings…

Wes

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Tags: building_solar_house, Solar Plans