[RE-wrenches] Snow Guards

[Sam Haraldson]

We've been installing Alpine Snowguards with great regularity for the past
few years.  We operated under the incorrect assumption that they were rated
for 150psf snow loads based on materials of theirs that indicated that at
weights higher than 150 an engineer should be consulted.  We were also
unfortunately unaware that 6" depths should be cleared until quite
recently.  We are experiencing a winter of above-average accumulation and
we've had multiple failures (minor, but failures nonetheless) at the lower
edge of arrays with the Alpine product installed.  The "snow dogs" which
get placed throughout the array are bomber but the bottom edge is somewhat
weak and can break easily.

As a company we are currently discussing how we tactfully reach out to
clients that have this product installed regarding the 6" rule and whether
we should proactively remove the product knowing full well that in certain
areas of our installation territory we can see accumulations easily 10
times that.  As for alternate products we have not come across anything
that claims much higher capabilities than this.

We have not seen failures on the solar module frames and fortunately only
on the guard itself (so far).  But it's still only March and there's likely
a lot more snow to come so that remains to be seen.

Cheers,
Sam


[image: OnSite Energy] <https://onsiteenergyinc.com/>

Sam Haraldson
Operations Specialist
(406) 551-6135
1515 N. Rouse Ave Bozeman, MT 59715
Locally owned and operated since 2012
[image: B Corporation] <https://onsiteenergyinc.com/bcorp>
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