Snow Guards for Dummies

Roof with snow guards installed

It seems pretty clear to most people that if you want to know how to make something, you ask someone who knows what that something is and how to make it. Doesn't that make sense? You don't ask the average farmer how to make a balloon catheter; likewise you wouldn't expect a typical phlebotomist to be able to tell you how to make your own featherboard. Which leads us to ask what makes freelancers think they know everything? Clearly they don't: for instance, Homesteady.com's Julia Salgado has no earthly idea "How to Make Your Own Snow Guards"!

Salgado can't know how to make a snow guard, because Julia doesn't know what one is. Here's what she thinks...

"In areas with heavy snowfall, large amounts of snow collecting on the roofs of houses and other structures can cause large amounts of structural damage. In addition to this, the friction of slow-moving but massive collections of snow can cause irreparable erosion damage, leading to roof tiles needing to be replaced."

Somehow Salgado has conflated snow on the roof with alpine glaciation... but enough of that. No, Julia, that's not what snow guards are for. We don't usually like to quote wikipedia, but hell – Julia could have looked this up, herself:

"A snow guard is a device used to retain snow and ice from falling from one surface to a lower one; in contemporary usage, they are installed to prevent snow/ice pack from avalanching and damaging people, plants, and property below."

Nothing about "structural damage," nothing about "erosion damage"; just prevention of avalanches. OK, moving on: let's see how Salgado would have her readers make one of these things. She says, "These guards can be made relatively easily by using a metal strip and an L-shaped bracket," so let's have at it. Here is Julia's process for making one of the parts:

"Use the hack saw to cut a piece of a 3-inch wide metal strip to a 6-inch length. Measure the distance between the end of the shorter part of the L-shaped bracket and the angle of the bracket. Represent this measurement by drawing a horizontal line in pen across the metal strip the same distance from one end of the strip."

Errr, wha??? The next step is,

"...drill three holes into the metal strip, in a vertical line. This is where the bolts will be positioned to affix the snow guards into place..."

Bolts? What bolts? Salgado's instructions – useless in the absence of measurements, we think – continue with nuts and bolts and L-shaped brackets (where, we wonder do those come from?) until it's time to install the snow guards:

"Slide the length of strip with the three holes under a roof tile and use the template to show the positions of the holes. Mark these holes in chalk and drill rivets into the chalk marks, securing the snow guard."

Wait, what? a roof tile? in a climate with heavy snow? No friggin' way! Salgado's doofus instructions, which lack even the slightest grounding at a reference, supposedly came from a website that specializes in snow guards for slate roofs. Unfortunately, it contains only images of commercially-available snow guards and not DIY information. Know what? That makes Julia our Dumbass of the Day.

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