This article touches on managing snow on synthetic slate shingles as observed from our snow guard performance testing facility in Morrisville, Vermont between mid-January – early March, 2020. We will follow up with reports on composition shingles, corrugated metal, slate and tile, membrane and solar panels. Winter conditions in the eastern region of the U.S. Keep reading . . .
6 Slate Roof Maintenance Tips for Spring
Brian Stearns, the President & Founder of Alpine SnowGuards, wrote the below back in the Spring of 2006. Brian’s deep roots in the slate roofing industry (he began his career as a slate roofer in the 1970’s) has given him a wealth of knowledge and experience that’s honestly too valuable NOT to share (and re-share). Keep reading . . .
Road Map for Slate Roofing Success
A reprint of an article published by Brian Stearns, president & founder of Alpine SnowGuards, in Slate Roof Quarterly. Over the years, Brian has become a thought leader in the industry, and we wanted to share this article he wrote in 2005 – about seven years after founding Alpine SnowGuards. It’s interesting to see how Keep reading . . .
Retrofitting Fusion-Guard to Existing Slate Roofs
Last Tuesday, we officially launched our newest product, Fusion-Guard, a hybrid pad/pipe-style snow guard. We’re often asked all sorts of questions about our products, especially one like Fusion-Guard. It’s new to the industry and new all around. It’s the only one of its kind ever brought to market. A Question About our New Fusion-Guard I received Keep reading . . .
Solar Snow Management for PV Arrays: Expectations vs. Reality
Several Alpine SnowGuards’ customers reached out to us between 2010-2012 hoping we could provide solar snow management for PV arrays. This was an entirely new snow management problem that was evolving right along with the solar industry. This new problem stemmed from solar PV arrays installed on composition shingle roofs that don’t shed “much” snow Keep reading . . .
Introducing Fusion-Guard: A True Game-Changer
It’s here, simple and cost effective. It works on any roof surface. It’s a pad-style snow guard and it’s a pipe-style snow guard. The Fusion-Guard is a hybrid design that should’ve have been invented sooner. A product so revolutionary, I’ve never seen anything like it in the 42 years I’ve been in the roofing business. Keep reading . . .
How It All Began
Brian Stearns, the President and Owner of Alpine SnowGuards, has been diligently writing blogs and conducting in-depth technical research of our new testing facility, announced to the public just after the 1st of the year. His passion for all things roof-related dates back to his youth in the 1970’s, as illustrated in the below editorial Keep reading . . .
Buckles & Cornices: Alpine SnowGuard’s Research Continues
Alpine SnowGuard’s research continues with roof snow management details we observed at our in-house performance testing facility: “buckling”. Some roofing materials, especially those that incorporate Polyolefins in their formulation, tend to shed snow and ice quickly as demonstrated in the below video clip and in our previous blog. Buckles: (intransitive verb) to bend or move Keep reading . . .
Snow Guard Performance Testing Facility
As I mentioned in last week’s blog, Alpine SnowGuards constructed an in-house snow guard performance testing facility. It is at our location in Morrisville, VT (10 minutes north of Stowe). We can now accumulate data related to sliding snow conditions on varying roof surfaces. In-House Snow Guard Performance Testing Facility The structure as seen above Keep reading . . .
Alpine SnowGuards in 2020: A first-of-its-kind research facility
Since the early 1990’s, Alpine has spent a great deal of time and money on structural testing of snow guards. Some of these results are now 20 years old. As we begin a new year, we’ll begin the process of completely retesting every product we offer. Our first-of-its-kind research facility will allow us to start Keep reading . . .