Home tools Buyer's Guides from tech enthusiast who loves technology and clever solutions for better living.
Best roof rake 2018 – [Buyer’s Guide]
Last Updated March 1, 2023
Hi! My name is Brayden Diaz. After putting in 49+ hours of research and testing, I made a list of the best roof rake of 2018 and explained their differences and advantages.
My main objective is to write article on these subject so that buyers like you can have the best assistance and education in making that next purchase. We take a close look at some of the best roof rake to help you get ripped.
Best roof rake of 2018
There’s a product for every kind of user on the list of affordable options below. The “Total” indicates the overall value of the product.
The table below summarizes features, and below you’ll find more detailed reviews of each good. Not all roof rake are created equal though.
Test Results and Ratings
| Rank | №1 | №2 | №3 |
| Product |  |
 |
 |
| Total | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.3 |
| Ease of use |
5 points
|
4 points
|
4 points
|
| Versatility |
4 points
|
5 points
|
4 points
|
| Performance |
5 points
|
5 points
|
5 points
|
| Quality |
5 points
|
4 points
|
4 points
|
| Awards |  |
||
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
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№1 – Ohuhu 21 Inch Twist-n-Lock Telescoping Snow Shovel Roof Rake with 6″ by 25″ Poly Blade
| Total: |
4.8
|
Why did this roof rake win the first place?
I am very happy with the purchase. It is definitely worth its money. The product is top-notch! I really enjoy the design. It is compact, comfortable and reliable. And it looks amazing! The material is stylish, but it smells for the first couple of days. I don’t know anything about other models from this brand, but I am fully satisfied with this product.
5
|
4
|
5
|
5
|
№2 – Snow Joe RJ205M Twist-N-Lock Telescoping Snow Shovel Aluminum Roof Rake
| Total: |
4.5
|
Why did this roof rake come in second place?
I recommend you to consider buying this model, it definitely worth its money. The material is pretty strong and easy to wash if needed. The design quality is top notch and the color is nice. I really liked it. It is amazing in every aspect. It did even exceed my expectations for a bit, considering the affordable price.
4
|
5
|
5
|
4
|
№3 – Minnsnowta Titan Roof Razor Roof Rake Snow Rake
| Total: |
4.3
|
Why did this roof rake take third place?
I liked the design. We’ve been using it for 2 months and it still looks like brand new. This price is appropriate since the product is very well built. I hope that the good reputation of the manufacturer will guarantee a long-term work. It doesn’t squeaks nor bents. Looks great in my apartment.
4
|
4
|
5
|
4
|
roof rake Buyer’s Guide
Features
Material: when buying a snow roof rake you should consider the material that it is made of. Choose one that has a higher percentage of plastic than metal because plastic is lighter and cannot scrape the shingles or granules on your roof and also ones that have handles made of strong but light metals.
Size:choose a snow roof rake that has a wider blade to get more snow off the roof with smaller rollers. The rollers near the blade are important because they keep the blade of the rake off of the surface of your roof, thus protecting it from being scraped. The handle should be long enough and telescopic to reach further up the roof.
Price:buy an affordable snow rake that is made of high quality materials, do not settle for cheap ones that will break off the moment you start using it.
Durability:when buying a snow roof rake buy one that will serve you a long time by choosing one made of durable materials that will not allow rust or bend and break within a short period of time. Choose ones that are made of aluminum handles and polyethylene blades.
Ames Inc True Temper Snow Roof Rake
When dealing with a heavy snow build up on your roof a rake with a wide blade will be very handy but you also need one that is durable enough. This rake from Ames Inc features a 24-inch wide blade with a reinforced wear strip for maximum durability. And it also comes with a telescoping handle that will extend up to 1feet, non-slip handle and a poly grip end that also has a hole for easy storage.
Garant GPRR24U Yukon Poly Blade Snow Rake
Garant makes this snow rake for clearing awnings, skylight, and any typical roof. It comes with a 24-inch polyethylene blade that nit only clears large sections at a good but will also not damage your roof. Also, the head has a wide angle to make snow cleaning easy. The aluminum handle comes in three 5-feet sections, and it is also anti-slip for easy and comfortable handling.
MinnSnowta Dynamo Razor Roof Snow Rake
The Dynamo Razor snow rake stands out from the many other types in the market because it removes the snow quickly and you do not even need to put in a lot of effort. And it comes with an aircraft grade aluminum handle that will provide up to 24-foot reach to ensure that you can clear snow without ever living the ground. It will clear a path that is about 2-feet wide with every pass, and it can remove snow regardless of the depth.
Snow Joe (RJ205M) Twist-n-Lock Telescoping Snow Rake
You do not need to spend a lot of cash to get a handy snow roof rake because an inexpensive one like this will still do the job well. And apart from snow, it will also be helpful for removing both leaves and debris. The snow rake also has a telescoping handle that will adjust from 6-foot to 21-feet to provide an extended reach. And it is also a lightweight snow rake with an oversize aluminum blade.
XtremepowerUS Aluminum Snow Roof Rake
This 21-foot reach snow roof will remove snow chunks from any roof fast. It has a 25-inch wide blade that will clear large sections and is also gentle on your roof. The lightweight aluminum material makes the rake easy to handle and is still solid enough. And despite the look, this is still easy to assemble and use.
Material
The material of the snow rake is a vital factor to consider when shopping for one it will affect its performance and ease of use. And when it comes to materials plastic is always a better option than metal as it is lighter and will also be gentler on your roof than metal. Plastics will also not rust like metal. But, aluminum seems to be the best option as it is as durable as other metal ones and lightweight like plastic.
Your snow roof rake handle will determine how easy it will be to handle when raking the snow. And so you should always make sure that you go for a rake with the best handle. You should not just go for a longer handle but also choose the bendable ones because they will allow for vertical movements, unlike the stiff ones that only move up and down. A telescoping handle design will also be better as it will allow you to alter the length quickly.
Extension Rods
Extension rods can be very handy when using snow roof rakes as they will allow you to get to the hard to reach pats o your roof. Also, they can act as replacements for damaged or lost rods. A snow roof rake that allows for extension rods will be very convenient.
Other Features
Other features like wheels, bumper or rollers are also a great addition to any snow roof rake. They make the rake move smoothly and will also prevent it from damaging your roof. Any other extra features that make the rake more convenient to use will also be great.
The best-selling American Made Roof Rake snow removal tool.
If you are wondering which roof rake everyone is buying – you have found it. Hundreds of satisfied customers weekly select the Deluxe American Made Snow Roof Rake with Shingle Saver Rollers is designed to easily remove snow from your roof without the blade head touching your shingles. Relieve your roof of the unbelievable weight of snow and prevent water damage to your home from ice dams near the edge. Its perfect for other uses including removing snow from school buses and commercial vehicles.
Tried and tested this Roof Rake is engineered to last and do a great job time after time. Made of rugged and lightweight no-rust aluminum and plated hardware this roof rake weighs less than pounds and is assembled in minutes. During use the poles snap together so you can roof rake in five foot increments.
Roof rake hardware pack containing, nuts, bolts and patented shingle savers.
Doug Mahoney
For the fourth straight winter, we’re convinced that the True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover is the best snow shovel for most people looking to clear walkways, steps, and small driveways. No other shovel matches its unique blend of ideal size, ergonomics, durability, and availability.
The Trentco Prohandle, a pick for an ergonomic add-on handle you can put on a snow shovel, appears to be discontinued. We still like the Stout Backsaver, which was our first recommendation for an add-on handle, back in 201It’s not as durable as the Prohandle, and it doesn’t have the positioning options, but it’s much less expensive and should get the job done, at least for a couple of years.
The True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover has a sturdy, lightweight aluminum shaft that gloved hands can grip anywhere. Its 18-inch-wide plastic scoop is neither overly large and awkward nor too small and inefficient. The shovel has a curved shaft, an unusual design that makes moving snow easier, as it means you have to put less work into each swing. The nylon leading edge of the scoop won’t gouge your deck or catch on your brick patio. Plus, the shovel is built to last—I’ve had mine for eight New England winters, and it still works fine.
The Ergonomic Mountain Mover is good on its own, but it’s even better with the addition of a Stout Backsaver. This secondary handle attaches to the shaft and improves ergonomics and lessens the risk of injury. By adding this handle, the effort to shovel is more balanced between your two hands, greatly reducing the strain on your back and lowering overall exertion. Simply put, it makes shoveling easier, whether you’re scraping snow off steps or scooping it from the ground. Unfortunately, the Backsaver has some durability issues. Ours lasted only two years before cracking. At the moment, though, we’ve yet to find a secondary handle that works better. In 201this item replaced our previous pick, the now-discontinued Trentco Prohandle (the blue handle that appears in some of this guide’s photos). The (yellow) Backsaver was our pick in the original version of this guide in 2013.
If the Ergonomic Mountain Mover is unavailable, we recommend the Bully Tools 9281Combination Snow Shovel. This model is a new runner-up for 2017, replacing the Suncast SCP3500 Powerblade. The two are similar, but the Bully has a longer handle, a wider scoop, and it typically costs less. Overall, the Bully has a more durable feel than our main pick, but we still prefer the ergonomic benefits of the Ergonomic Mountain Mover.
How we picked and tested
Understanding the havoc a poorly designed snow shovel can wreak on an unsuspecting body, we dove headlong into the ergonomics of shoveling, and in the end realized that the best multipurpose shovel is a model with a plastic combo scoop (with a plastic wear strip) and a curved shaft. The combo design means that the shovel can both push and scoop snow.
You’ll encounter three main snow shovel styles: combos, shovels, and pushers.
Combos are the most versatile because they offer the benefits of the other styles without the drawbacks of either one. Because you can use them to scoop, toss, and push snow, they are, as Saffron told us, the standard snow tool in the US. Our pick, the True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover, is a combo model. Its scoop is 1inches wide—a size we found to be in the sweet spot (roughly 1to 2inches wide) for shovels to be effective but not unwieldy.
Shovels, in a technical sense, are a basic flat blade on a stick, the kind that you might remember a parent or grandparent using (Charlie Brown used one, too). The flat scoop sits in line with the shaft, so such a design isn’t good at pushing snow (or anything else, really, as our testing discovered).
Pushers, designed with blades often more than two feet wide, are not designed for scooping or tossing. They generally look like a snow plow on the end of a stick, and they’re popular in colder temperatures, where snow is drier and lighter, meaning an average person can simply push it out of the way. According to Saffron, Canada is a massive market for pushers. These tools are also good for clearing smaller snowfalls from driveways. Although we strongly recommend a combo for primary snow removal, we tested four leading pushers and have our recommendation below.
Beyond using combos, shovels, and pushers, many people repurpose other shovel styles for their snow removal. The most common tools in this category are grain shovels, which have huge scoops and short handles. Proponents of this style list durability and a massive scoop size among the advantages. We included two grain shovels in our testing, and of all the shovels we handled, they transferred the most strain to the back.
Another favorite is the metal coal shovel (a regular shovel, but with a flat edge instead of a spade). The strength and durability of these is ideal for busting up ice and digging into frozen slush (a common challenge on salted and plowed streets), but the small size and relatively high weight of the scoop will move less snow with more effort than a larger poly scoop.
As for materials, the repetitive nature of shoveling means you should go with the lightest scoop. In most cases, that’s plastic—polyethylene, or “poly” for short. These shovels have a light weight plus the built-in flexibility to withstand sharp impacts on uneven pavement.
A wear strip protects the leading edge of a shovel scoop, and we’ve found that plastic ones are the best option. They’re slightly rounded at the edge, so the shovel can easily slide over uneven surfaces without jamming up. Though they add durability, they are also soft enough to work on decks and stone walkways without damaging the surface.
Representatives of Horgan Enterprises, a landscaping and snow-removal company located in Boston, told us in an interview that the company steers clear of metal wear strips that can easily scratch wood decks, brick walkways, and bluestone patios. Metal strips are also sharp, so they end up hitching on uneven surfaces, which jars the shovel user’s shoulders and arms. Most poly shovels that have no wear strip are sharp but easily dented and damaged (our current runner-up pick, the Bully Tools 9281Combination Snow Shovel, has no wear strip but is very durable).
Our own testing confirmed this result.
The original batch of tested shovels, left to right: True Temper Arctic Blast, Voilé Telepro, Suncast SN1000, True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover (with Backsaver), SnowBow, Bigfoot Power Lift, True Temper SnoBoss, Suncast SC3250 (with Motus D-Grip), True Temper Mountain Mover with VersaGrip, Suncast SG1600, Suncast Double Grip, Dart BHS18, Rugg 26PBSLW, Suncast Powerblade.
Understanding that a secondary handle would be a key addition to our chosen shovel, we first located all of the available tools that come with one attached: the Bigfoot Power Lift, the SnowBow (which appears to be discontinued), the Suncast SC3590 Double Grip, and the True Temper SnoBoss, which has a double shaft and a perpendicular handle.
At the same time we also discovered two add-on secondary handles, the Stout Backsaver and the Motus D-grip, both designed to be attached to any shafted tool. In late 2015, we tested another secondary handle, the Trentco ProHandle.
To fully explore the ergonomic possibilities, we tested a wide assortment of regular shovels representing the different styles with and without the add-on secondary handles and in a variety of shaft and scoop shapes. Three of those shovels—the Dart BHS18, Rugg 26PBSLW, and Suncast SC3250—had bent shafts. Two, the True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover and the True Temper Aluminum Combo Snow Shovel, had a curved shaft. The Suncast SCP3500 Powerblade and the True Temper Mountain Mover with VersaGrip each had a standard straight shaft. In addition, we looked at two grain shovels, the Suncast SG1600 and the True Temper Arctic Blast Poly Snow Scoop (which the company has since rebranded as the Union Tools Snow Scoop), and we included the Voilé Telepro Avalanche Shovel to see where it fit in with the rest. For a control unit, we added the Suncast SN1000 to represent the old-fashioned shovel. In late 2016, we also tested the Bully Tools 9281Combination Snow Shovel.
Since our original guide in 2013, we’ve expanded our search to include car shovels, pushers, and sleighs and tested five car shovels, four pushers, two sleighs, and a cult favorite, the Wovel.
For the bulk of our testing, four New England residents used the shovels to clear a driveway, five long walkways, four front stoops, three decks, a long set of deck stairs (1steps and one landing), a set of fieldstone steps, a set of cobblestone steps, a stone patio, and a brick patio. The shovelers varied in height and gender, consisting of a 6-foot male, a 5-foot-male, a 6-foot-male, and a 5-foot-female. Testing occurred over the course of eight days and after six snowstorms that totaled about 4inches of snow. During this time, a wide range of temperatures caused snow density to vary from light and fluffy to frozen and crunchy to melty and slushy.
We investigated nearly 7shovels over the past five years and have yet to find one that is better than the True Temper 18-Inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover with an add-on Stout Backsaver. The shovel stands apart from its competitors with a unique combination of several features we found essential in a good snow shovel: a curved handle, a poly wear strip, and a flexible and durable scoop. During our tests, it was everyone’s pick as the best, but when we added on the secondary handle, improving the ergonomics even more, our crew of shovel testers went bananas over it.
The Ergonomic Mountain Mover was the only model we tested with a curved shaft made of light and durable aluminum. The arcing shape allows for a straighter back while shoveling and also gives full flexibility in hand positioning up and down the shaft. The design stabilizes the scooping motion, eliminating the pendulum effect you feel when using a shovel with a bent shaft. The D-grip at the back end of the Ergonomic Mountain Mover is nice and large, and no one in our testing panel had any problems fitting a hand wearing a chunky winter glove into the opening.
The business end of the Ergonomic Mountain Mover is an 18-inch-wide flexible poly scoop with a nylon wear strip, which makes for a durable and protected leading edge that won’t gouge or scratch a deck or walkway. We had no problem busting up ice and compacted snow on wooden deck steps with the shovel, and the steps came through the process unmarred. The wear strip is rounded, so it easily finds its way over uneven surfaces like brick walkways or fieldstone steps. The flex in the poly scoop also absorbs impact when the shovel gets jammed, which can’t be said about shovels with metal scoops.
As for long-term durability, I can personally vouch for this True Temper model. It’s the shovel that I’ve used for the past nine New England winters, and it is only now showing some signs of wear. (We tested with a new model.) The corners of the scoop are beginning to crack a little, but I’m not particularly alarmed about that. The shovel still works fine.
The Backsaver clamps to the shovel shaft with four bolts and wing nuts. It’s easy to put on and take off, so in the spring, you can move the handle over to your garden shovel or rake. Even though the True Temper Ergonomic Mountain Mover has a curved design, we had no problems securing the handle to its shaft. The Backsaver replaces our previous pick, the more durable (and now discontinued) Trentco ProHandle, a blue add-on handle that appears in some of this guide’s photos.
In addition to reducing back strain, the Backsaver also makes shoveling a long flight of deck stairs much easier. When you’re standing on a step and pulling snow toward you (think of paddling a canoe), the extra handle adds a nice grip and lets you stand farther back from the shovel to clear off the steps. On level ground, the Backsaver really pays for itself: While moving snow, everyone on our testing panel, regardless of height, could feel the change in body mechanics and the reduced strain on their back.
We also tested the Motus D-grip, another readily available add-on handle, but found it more difficult to keep tight on the shovel’s shaft. Plus, the grip area was smaller, giving larger gloved hands some problems.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
One drawback to the Ergonomic Mountain Mover’s nylon-wear-strip design—but one that’s worth the trade-off—is that it’s thicker than its metal-strip (or strip-free) competitors. This added beefiness makes knifing the shovel under compacted snow or into a semi-frozen snowbank more difficult. But the nylon strip has advantages that the others don’t. Shovels with metal wear strips can catch on any uneven surface, jarring your shoulders. Such models also damage non-pavement surfaces easily, and in our tests, some of the models without a strip were damaged after just a few hours of shoveling.
In the nine years I’ve owned the Ergonomic Mountain Mover shovel, I’ve never had any issue with the wear strip’s thickness. Only after I saw this True Temper model tested alongside the metal-edged shovels did I realize that such a difference existed.
Be Aware of the Weather
Dress warmly in layers and with hat, gloves, and slip-proof boots before attempting to remove snow from your roof. Hypothermia, frost bite, and cardiac arrest during heavy lifting in freezing temperatures is not at all uncommon. Also be aware of the forecasts to avoid an exercise in futility or an emergency situation where old and new snow deposits combine to overwhelm your roof.
Be Aware of Your Roof Condition
If you have the option of removing four inches (10.16 cm) of snow instead of waiting until 1inches (45.7cm) have piled up, so much the better. As layer after layer accumulates, you may end up with ice layers under snow layers, which will make snow-removal extremely hazardous.
Lift With Good Posture
Lifting snow can strain your back muscles and give you aches and cramps, but using your legs more than your back to lift with will help prevent this. Proper lifting is as important with snow as with heavy boxes or machinery.
Remove Snow in Sequence
It is generally best to remove heavy drifts first to balance out the load, but for gabled roofs, you should begin at the ridge and work toward the eaves for best results. Snow should never be “stockpiled” on the roof temporarily.
Your Home is Prone to Ice Dams
Ice dams can cause water to back up on your roof and leak into your home, causing a lot of damage. Ice dams need snow to form, so if there’s less snow on your roof, they won’t form as easily.
Professionals recommend removing snow after every six inches of snow fall to prevent ice dams.
Stay Aware of Your Surroundings
Being aware of your surroundings is vital during roof snow removal. Make sure no people are in an area where the falling snow will hit them.
Be careful to keep building exits, fire escapes, downspouts, gutters, ventilation openings, and any equipment free from snow. Before you start, check the area where the snow will fall for any equipment falling snow could damage.
Have someone with you while you rake to keep an extra eye out.
How They Compare
Something you definitely want to take into consideration when shopping for roof rakes for snow removal or for a roof rake for leaves is the length of the pole of the best roof rake for your specific needs.
All of the roof rakes on the list, other than the Garant snow roof rake, are a generous 2feet long. The Garant snow roof is a bit shorter at only 1feet long. It’s still a great choice for those with a shorter roof, though.
The Garant roof rake, the Garelick roof rake, and the Ohuhu roof rake all have a pole that comes in several pieces that attach together to lengthen the pole.
The two Snow Joe roof rakes, however, both feature telescoping poles for extra easy length adjustment.
Both Snow Joe roof rakes along with the Ohuhu roof rake also feature a nice and long 25-inch blade.
The Garelick roof rake and Garant roof rake each have a 24-inch blade.The Garelick roof rake along with the Snow Joe RJ205M both have a blade that is made from aluminum, while the other three snow roof rakes on the list have a blade made of plastic.
The Garelick roof rake also includes a set of nifty rollers that prevent the blade from actually making contact with the roof and therefore prevents any possible damage that the snow roof rake may cause.
How toRake Snow Off Your Roof
If you live in an area where it snows a lot, you may find yourself raking snow off your roof. In a well-designed house, this is rarely necessary. Not all houses, however, are well-designed for snow.
Some houses have porches with flat roofs that collect snow. The porch is an addition to the house and is an afterthought. Other houses have shallow-pitched roofs that are not steep enough to cause the accumulated snow to slide off naturally.
Buying more than one kit allows you to assemble two kits together to make a snow rake that is extra long.
Here you have to be careful. Since you are now exceeding the design specification of the rake, you must handle your snow rake very carefully being sure not to stress it or flex it too much.
When I make two kits into one long kit, I replace the fasteners with nuts and bolts that I buy at the same hardware store. Kits are designed to be easy to put together. In some cases, the fasteners that hold the parts together are made out of plastic.
I consider this to be an essential step. One half hour of building paths through the snow so that you can walk on top of it will save you lots of trudging through deep snow and falling into holes.
You don’t want to be falling into holes. This really slows you down. Trust me on this one. I know.
How do I build a path? I walk through the snow taking little tiny baby steps retracing my steps many times. I walk forwards.
I walk sideways. I cover the same ground over and over again.
The idea is to create a flat surface that you can walk on as easily as you would walk on a narrow sidewalk.
Your paths through the snow will support your weight if you will follow this simple rule: Whenever you step into a hole, fill that hole with snow until it is as solid and flat as the rest of your sidewalk made out of snow.
It’s so much easier to work the snow rake when you have a sidewalk to walk on that you’ve built yourself.
I’ve thought of using snow shoes but have rejected this solution. To me, there’s nothing that is better than walking on hardened and flat snow with my own two feet. I like being able to move around easily.
Since the whole point of snow-raking is to remove weight off the roof so that it does not collapse under the weight, you might as well go after the easy stuff first.
Remember that it is harder to move snow once it hits the ground than it is to get it off the roof in the first place.
This is a health club where you pay no dues and you don’t have to get in the car to get there. You simply go outside and start raking anytime you need exercise.
How to Snow Rake Blog
I’ve started a snow-raking blog. If I can’t answer your question, perhaps someone else can.
If you email me with a snow rake question, I’ll try to answer it somewhere on the blog. This way, other people can benefit from the discussion.
Fair enough? This way I don’t answer the same question over and over again. Also, since I’m really not a snow-raking expert, it makes it possible for others to point out any erroneous suppositions I may have made.
The major issue with ice dams on the roof, is that they trap the melting water running down from the top of the roof, and thereby cause it (the melted water) to rise up underneath the roofing shingles, and eventually seep through the boards and walls inside our homes.
Common Misconceptions
Although, ice dams can sometimes reach the gutters, they do not form in the gutters, but rather they form at the eaves of the roof. If you can get your attic-space air temperature to stay at 30° F, or lower (during heavy snow fall accompanied by low temperatures), then you should be able to eliminate ice dams from happening in the first place.
Solving the root cause
One of the easiest long-term solutions to prevent ice dams is to minimize the impact of the warm air that contributes to ice dam formation on your roof. One effective way to stop the warm air from escaping into the attic is to use a proper insulation on the attic floor. You will find that most older homes do not have sufficient levels of attic insulation. To further complicate this problem, many homes with the insufficient attic insulation also have many air leaks and subsequent home-to-attic warm air drafts that literally drive the warm air inside the attic.
Snow Rakes
You can use the snow rakes to push up and clean up the snow on your roof, which should help you stop the ice dams from forming.
Keep in mind that heating cables and snow rakes are just temporary measures, and at some point, you will probably want to have your attic space adequately insulated and ventilated as part of your long-term ice dam prevention and heat loss strategy.
Reuben is a second generation home inspector with a passion for his work. He grew up remodeling homes and learning about carpentry since he was old enough to hold a hammer. Reuben has worked for Structure Tech since it was purchased by Neil in 1997, and is now co-owner and President of the company.
Avoid valleys
If you are designing the roof of a new house, try to design a roof without any valleys. Valleys concentrate water and often clog with ice. It’s far more common to have leaks or ice dam problems near valleys than in the middle of a simple sloped roof.
Many valleys exist because of a designer’s conceit rather than necessity. Often, these valleys trace back to the mistaken belief that a chopped-up, complicated, multi-plane roof looks better than a simple gable. It doesn’t.
Choose metal roofing or asphalt shingles
I’m just expressing my opinion here. Clay tiles and slate are expensive. Concrete tiles are fragile and tricky to walk on.
Cedar shingles are beautiful, but they are time-consuming to install and (because of their flammability) are illegal in some jurisdictions. Imitation slate and imitation wood shingles look like they belong on a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.
Get flashing details right
Step flashing should be generously sized; the vertical leg should be at least inches high, although inches is better. Remember, you aren’t going to be bringing your siding down to the roof, so at least inches of step flashing will remain visible under your siding. Each piece of flashing should be bent from a piece of sheet metal measuring at least inches by 1inches; crease the flashing so that it has two 6-inch-wide legs.
Each piece of step flashing only gets one nail into the roof. Never nail step flashing to the wall — that only complicates the job of replacing the step flashing in the future. If your step flashing begins at the eave, don’t forget to install kick-out flashing at the eave.
When I install step flashing on an asphalt shingle roof, I like to install a sideways course of cedar shingles under the step flashing, installed at 90° to the usual shingle orientation, with the butt end of each cedar shingle facing the sidewall and the tapered edge blending into the field of the roof. (The cedar shingles are later hidden by the asphalt shingle roofing.) These imperceptible shims direct water away from the vulnerable sidewall flashing, and lighten the load of water that the kickout flashing has to deal with.
Chimneys always get two types of flashing to allow the roof to settle without breaking the flashing. I was taught to flash chimneys with 16-ounce copper flashing and lead counterflashing. These days, however, many roofers are avoiding lead because of its toxicity; it’s possible to counterflash chimneys with copper instead of lead, but the copper isn’t as flexible.
Unless the chimney bisects a ridge, every chimney needs a cricket. Make the cricket oversized, so that the two cricket valleys terminate away from the chimney.
Installers of steel roofing often do a sloppy job with flashing. When I install steel roofing, I always plan carefully for any roof penetrations like vent pipes, chimneys, or skylights. Ideally, you want to lap the steel panels at the penetration. One sheet of metal roofing runs from the eave to a few inches above the penetration; then the penetration is flashed. Then a second sheet of metal roofing is installed from the ridge down to a few inches below the penetration, so that the steel roofing laps at the penetration.
What to Do Immediately
If you see that water starts to pool on your floors or windowsills or leak from the ceiling, head outside and look at your roof. If you see ridges of ice below piles of snow, an ice dam may be the reason for the leaks. “First you see the dam, then you say it when it happens to your roof,” says Susan Millerick, spokeswoman for the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IIBHS).
What to Do After the Snow Melts
Once the weather warms up, you can take corrective action for next season. “Keep in mind that even if a roofing contractor removes an ice dam over the winter, they’re really only addressing a symptom, not the cause of your problem,” Rupar says.
According to roofing experts, the best way to handle ice dams is to ventilate your attic and insulate between it and the living spaces of the house. This will minimize the temperature differential between the outside air and the air in your attic that causes the dams to form. You may want to consult a weatherization contractor, who can help you locate the areas of greatest heat loss and recommend how to fix them.
Both the Department of Energy and the Consumer Product Safety Commission offer step-by-step instructions for do-it-yourselfers who want to tackle the job themselves. But if your home has a history of ice dams, or if you have ducts or recessed lighting fixtures that extend through the ceiling into the attic, you may want to leave the job to the pros.
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You must visit the page of sales. Here is the link. If you don’t care about which brand is better, then you can choose the roof rake by the price and buy from the one who will offer the greatest discount.
Final Word
First of all thanks for reading my article to the end! I hope you find my reviews listed here useful and that it allows you to make a proper comparison of what is best to fit your needs and budget. Don’t be afraid to try more than one product if your first pick doesn’t do the trick.
Most important, have fun and choose your roof rake wisely! Good luck!
So, TOP3 of roof rake
- №1 — Ohuhu 21 Inch Twist-n-Lock Telescoping Snow Shovel Roof Rake with 6″ by 25″ Poly Blade
- №2 — Snow Joe RJ205M Twist-N-Lock Telescoping Snow Shovel Aluminum Roof Rake
- №3 — Minnsnowta Titan Roof Razor Roof Rake Snow Rake
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