ColorGard® - Metal Roof Snow Bar

When snow avalanches off a rooftop, it can damage anything in its path. This sudden release of snow can be dramatic—dumping tons of snow all at once. Falling snow forms a temperature-sensitive bond to the surface of a metal roof. As that roof warms, whether from the sun or from building heat loss, the bond with the snow is broken and a thin film of melt water serves to lubricate the roof. This can have dramatic results as a several-ton blanket of snow suddenly slides off the roof and avalanches down upon anything in its path: gutters, vehicles, landscape, even people. Once piled up below, that same snowbank can cause additional troubles, like direct damage to the building walls or even indirect damage caused by funneling melt water into, rather than away from, the wall. This is what makes snow retention devices desirable: they hold the snow back and allow it to leave the roof slowly, either in small amounts of snow or as meltwater, avoiding the dual calamity of the avalanche.

It is very difficult to predict how snow banks will shear when only a portion of the bank is restrained. It will not, however, shear in a straight line from the end of the snow retention system (also known as a snow guard) up to the ridge. This is a certainty. Rather, it will shear in a diagonal line toward the ridge. The angle of that line becomes more acute as the slope of the metal roof increases, resulting in a large, wedge-shaped bank of snow being supported by the system -- not a small, rectangular shaped bank. This is because the snow bank has cohesive strength within itself. The cohesive strength varies with the density and temperature of the snow bank, which always changes. Hence, the angle of shear is impossible to determine with any certainty.

Because of the perfect color matching that lasts the life of the roof! It is no trick to achieve a perfect color match to the roof initially; numeric computer matching has made that task simple. The challenge is to keep it color-matched over time and exposure because different pigments, paint resins and application technologies result in different aging characteristics. One paint fades much more rapidly than another, resulting in a very unsightly mismatch after several years.

The premium paint finishes used on metal panels are “coil-coated.” This paint application method utilizes state-of-the-art technologies, chemical pretreatment, primer and finish coat application, and controlled oven curing. Only through this lengthy process can high quality Kynar and Hylar (PVDF) finishes be applied and warranted against color fade for 20 years and longer.

ColorGard is the only product that uses the same factory applied (coil-coated) finish and inorganic pigments as the roof itself. We do this by incorporating a strip of the actual roof material in the ColorGard system, for a perfect match of the roof and snow guard—forever!

ColorGard presents architecturally clean lines. It is unobtrusive in appearance, blending into the roofscape. When compared to plastic alternatives that have highly 

reflective characteristics, ColorGard is the clear winner for complementing the roof. What manufacturers neglect to say is that these plastics are petroleum derivatives that change as they age. The sun’s ultraviolet rays draw out the oils and plasticizers leach out of the material causing the material to yellow with time.

A few short years in the elements causes clear plastic to dramatically discolor.

Because these products generally have low load-to-failure values, they must often be used in a very redundant fashion to avoid overload and failure. Because of ColorGard’s Herculean strength, less ColorGard is required. Based upon lab tested load-to-failure data, it can take up to 10 plastic parts to equal the strength of just one row of ColorGard.