Machine shed roof collapse insurance

We've had a bunch of machine shed and hog building roofs collapse in this area in the past couple of weeks. Doesn't matter what brand of building they are. The word is going around to check our insurance policy to see of it covers snow load. If it doesn't, you foot the whole bill for the building structure.

We had some rain on top of the snow on Saturday and it took a couple more roofs in my neighborhood. One was a good sized Morton full of modern machinery and the other was full of antique Oliver tractors. The owner of the Olivers is a good friend and he said there are a couple of exhaust pipes sticking up through the tin. He's not feeling very good about it right now. The mess is gonna have to come out in pieces to keep from causing more damage in the cleanup.

New machinery can be taken to the dealer to be fixed but It's a lot more emotional to see years of hard work crushed under a roof. Jim

Our insurance co sends out a letter when they know we've had a lot of snow and say we had better shovel our roofs because if they collapse because of not having been shoveled they will not pay.

Morton buildings are not supposed to collaps. Ins company will cite shoddy construction or peril group not covered and you will get nothing.

The insurance companys are not in business to pay clames. Thy take your money and come up with any excuse they can think of not to pay.

A metal building does not burn, and there is a clause about no coverage if snow load is to much.
Whats left that can happen? tornado, maybe but seems like you are paying for nothing.

I have 2 words that you may find amazing. "ROOF RAKE" I have one and it works well for getting snow off of a roof.

What state are you in?

Sounds like a Farm Bureau policy.

When I got insurance for my place, the insurance man made sure I knew of the snow load and I definatly had it put on my insurance plan.

Well said

I have Farm Bureau insurance and my agent claims I'm covered for full replacement on my 54X90 Morton if the roof goes down. My premium reflects it too! Two of the buildings that have dropped are Mortons. One is a 63X 108 and the other is probably 54 wide and 108 or longer. Raking the snow off them is like raking it off a parking lot sixteen feet in the air. A farmer in Minnesota fell through the sky light of his shed and did not survive. Most of the roofs that have gone down are on buildings that are sheltered by a grove. My shed is out in the wind and I've never had a problem with snow. Jim

Years ago a fellow had a buisness and a big building. He had it insured and disaster struck. Here is what the company said The mangled metal is salvagable so is the inventory so is the cement pad. When it was all done he got like $4000
(this is back when $4000 was about like $40,000 today.) He fought with them and they upped it some. The final insult was "its an act of godd and were not respnsible." HE NO LONGER CARRIES INSURANCE.

I had one go down about 4 years ago. Farm Bureau was not going to pay so I got real mad at adjuster. I started yelling and jumping up and down and acting real unstable. Long story short-they paid in full. I guess you can't blame them for trying.

Did either of those owners contact Morton? My new 60X88 Morton deluxe machine shed has a 50 year full snow load warranty. Of course, any modifications to the building such as overhead storage, lifts, anything that puts additional stress on the trusses, voids the warranty. Morton mgr told me they had several roofs collapse during winter of '07/'08 and they had replaced those roofs free of charge.

In my area its ice that brings down sheds.In the past 4 years weve had 3 major ice storms that took down lots of machine sheds.Several people found out that their insurance didnt cover building collapse from ice nor the machinery that was ruined in it.Some only had the building insured for what it cost to put it up new 30 years ago.

That's what I've heard talking to Morton Buildings.
BBBUUUTTT, guess I should talk to my insurance agent!

Do you tell them that if you are injured shoveling snow off the roof because of their threat, you will file a law suit?

There is a proverbial fly in the ointment here and that is builders like Walters and Morton build buildings that comply with local and state codes sooo in other words if your state and local codes don"t specify it they"re clear. I know this because I"m pricing the building of a new outbuilding and asked about this very issue and they said give us some specs and we"ll price it out for you so that means I need to get a certified architech to design for snow load which means more $$$ Sooo I"ve enlisted a friend who builds those type buildings on his own and uses the theory of the steeper the pitch the wider the gap works for me. He"s been building them for over 35 years and I know we aren"t in Minn. but have had 5 or 6 big snowfalls in those 35 but hasen"t lost a one. Buyer beware and that sucks! My rule of thumb is pitch the roof to the extreme and use tin and believe it or not it will withstand high winds better. My house is a 12/13 pitch capecod and we are the only house that hasn"t lost a roof or shingle in our neighborhood during Hurricane Ike.

There's no excuse for an engineered building to collapse under snow load. "Farmer built" buildings are one thing, but when you buy a Morton you're paying a premium price to ensure it's properly engineered for the locale. That means it's designed to handle the appropriate wind and snow loads. If it falls down, that means either Morton or the builder didn't do their job.

Frankly, if I was putting up a steel building, Morton would not be my first choice.

That is correct. The Morton sales DVD explains that there is a 50 year snow load warranty.
If you get any machine storage shed or pole shed you need to get that warranty in writing.

Come wintertime in Wisconsin and Michigan, shoveling the roof is like shoveling the sidewalk, you better do it. Here in Nebraska, we've had almost 30 inches of snow, then ice, don't want to think of the weight on a building, steel or otherwise.

Where are you located? I'm in beautiful southern MN. (Roads closed all around me due to the blizzard today....)

Just got my warrernty papers for the shed I put up last fall. 20 or more year snow load covered from builders.

Had insurance put it on.

I'm sure if it comes down, no one will actually pay....

That building has stayed totally free on the roof tho.

My very steep grainery roof, standing seam steel, hasn't Odd. It's so very steep, It won't collapse, the steepness is a very strong feature.

Just one of those years, very heavy wet sticky snow at times, with 2 bouts of rain as well. That's a real stress on roofs. Just heard on the news we've had 40 inches so far, with 4 blizzards trying to pile it up and over every farmyard.

I shoveled off about 50% of my low, shallow roof. East winds will pile it up on that one. And we've had a lot of east wind this year....

Man that's work. The back of the roof is only 8 feet high, and there is 3 foot snowbank, so it's not terrible dangerous. The snow was close to 3 feet in spots, as it drifts on the roof. And real wet heavy stuff, crusted over in 3 layers. Ugh. Building so old, it was a lumber shack been added on to 2 times was moved onto the place 70 years ago, not worth insuring, one beam is cracked & rotting, I put a beam under it for now. It's a 48 by 32 building, but real low 10 foot in front is all. You know how they built things back then, doesn't look like it should stand on it;'s own, but outlasts the new stuff....

I'd not want to go on top of a real machine shed 12-18 feet high eves, and a roof rake is worthless on a building that tall.

Ice dams have been terrible around here, think a lot of folks will find house damage too before this is all over.

Lumber yard a few towns away had their roof collapse a while ago - kind embarassing for that business to have their building cave in. no one hurt.

It's tough winter, and March is typically our snowiest month. We're hardly 1/2 way.....

If my insurance agent suggested the snow needs shoveled off a real machine shed, I'd hand him a shovel!

--->Paul

FB not my favorite either. Weaseled out on a claim when my in-law"s house had a flood due to plumbing failure.

If the building is properly designed, you should not need to shovel it off. As mentioned already, roof rakes are useless on high-eave buildings, and shoveling on them is a good way to die. Roof rakes are also a nice way to touch a powerline, so avoid that if using one. It's 20 feet from my shop roof eave to the ground. I will never shovel it. I will never have it shoveled. I took care of it at the ordering phase - it's speced for a 50 lb (per square foot) snow load, and per the truss company policy that's been further beefed to deal with the situation where one side blows clear (the unequal loading is harder on the truss than even loading). I think it added a whopping $100 to the truss order over the 40 lb minimum for this area.

That's about 9.6 inches of water or 2-1/2 feet of dense snow. Figures vary on the "dense snow" number, because snow weight per depth varies both as it falls (light and fluffy .vs. heavy and dense) and after it lands as it compacts. That's 3-5 feet of fresh snow per most numbers, upwards of 8 feet for the lightest types.

Doesn't do you much good if the building is underbuilt right now. Here's an old document from MN, where I'd think the design loads would be higher, but evidently not, at least for ag buildings.

http://www.bbe.umn.edu/extens/ennotes/enwin97/snow.html

One practical approach that doesn't involve running around on the roof is to add bracing inside the building. For best effect this should be done in consultation with an engineer, or at least with enough engineering insight to avoid making things worse by concentrating stress at the wrong point.

As for "needing a certified architect to design for it", I doubt it. You need an engineer, and the truss (or building) company has one or more of them on staff - what they need from you is a number to shoot for so they can give you a price. What I did was to look up the number that's minimum code for my area and add 10 to it - you can probably do the same, use a larger fudge factor, or have them give you a price on 2-3 different numbers to compare them. For the engineer, it's mostly pulling standard designs off the computer unless you have a very different building, and even if you do, it's still mostly punching different numbers into the computer to get the design/estimate. Then you will know what it costs to build to local code, overbuild, or seriously overbuild. If you have no local code to start from, you can ask for what they would design by default for your area, and two numbers larger than that by whatever factor gives you warm fuzzies. As a point of reference, the snowier towns nearby have a code minimum of 70 PSF.

Well, they don't say we have to shovel it ourselves, just that it needs to be shoveled. There are folks around here who hire out to shovel roofs, and now the Amish have arrived and they do it too. I have heard of people taking a small snowblower up on flat roofs, but it may be a legend. They don't send those letters till there's at least three feet of snow standing on the roofs in the area, so some years we don't get one. I've fallen off while shoveling roofs on a number of occasions, but whenever there's enough snow to need to shovel there's also enough to make a soft landing. I've gone in so deep that it's hard to get back to the ladder, but never over my head. I guess down there you don't have to worry with snow on your roofs, so good for you.
Zach

I'm in beautifully white nw Iowa. No, I'm not going up on my machine shed roof when there's snow up there. I've crawled around on a lot of buildings but not this one at this time.

My neighbor used his brother's tele-handler to clean his roof and it's a good idea, but what if you can't get to it with the tele-handler. Jim