Over the years there have been a number of different products, designs, and styles of snow retention products. At the end of the day, all the building owner wants is a long lasting product that will keep snow and ice from sliding off their metal roof. Strength is a critical element of and snow guard, snow jack, snow blox, etc. In this post I will cover keys to strength and why it’s critical to Know The Product.
Lets discuss STRENGTH.
- Gusset length and wall thickness of the product are two key factors that will determine load strength. You want to make sure that the product has long gussets that extends from the stop plate to the back of the guard itself. This allows the weight of the snow to distribute across the base of the product. You also want to check the wall thickness of the product. Make sure the manufacturer has not tried to thin out the overall thickness in an attempt to save money on material usage. Many China based products show these characteristics.
- Stay away from products that use REGROUND material or ones that do now specify virgin material ONLY. This is one reason why www.snowguarddirect.com is such a great reliable product. Every Snow Guard manufactured by Advantage Plastics, Inc. is molded using 100% virgin industrial grade polycarbonate. Some manufactures will take scrap from the production floor, grind it up, and mix it back into the material to form new product. While it sounds like a great way to recycle, reground material has a weaker tensile strength than virgin material. This means that over time, reground based production can manufacture parts that are not nearly as strong – resulting in broken product on your roof. Regrind can be used for various products/parts in which strength is not a critical element, a snow retention product is not one of them.
Watch this video and see how Snow Guard™ by Advantage Plastics, Inc. is made. Each part is manufactured, hand inspected, and packed in Mountain City, TN, USA.
