As you might have heard it has snowed a little bit in the south of Finland this year. And this has caused us and others a few problems.

Firstly we were running out of places to put all the snow.

But now the temperature has risen above zero C for the first time in about 60 days. That and predictions of more sleet and snow are giving rise to warnings about snow loadings on roofs. There has already been one sports hall roof collapse and although we have no idea of the actual loading of the house it is better to be safe than sorry. As it turns out the snow was up to 1m deep on our roof in places, although a bit less on average. That gives about 100kg per square metre (depending on snow density) and then with the size of the roof (about 185 sq.m) that is about 18 tonnes loading on the roof… Sooo, maybe a good idea to take some of it off.

Luckily our roof isn’t so steep and the snow was pretty deep. So not much slippage which was good for me. The snow layers separated pretty well, which in the mountains would be good for avalanches… But for me it meant it was a bit easier to remove the snow. Although it took several hours to clear the whole roof over the weekend and quite many aches and pains.

Unfortunately we thought we had a snow problem before.

Now we really have a snow problem…

So much that it is a bit difficult to get out of the house now!