Remember, that framework has contracted from the cold, and will to expand when it warms up. Those straps being tight now might snap, or twist the frame when it warms up
Sounds like someone needs to design a strap with a load spring to maintain tension under different conditions. Could probably design some sort of visual indicator that the spring compression and therefore load is in a acceptable range.
Maybe buy some 12v vibrating machine's, kinda like the ones under a dump bed but, 12v and mount them under the dome roof's so you can just flip a switch. It should work and Amazon has them cheap! Good video! :)
I remember that the manager of one of those inflatable golf domes was told he could use a shotgun to knock snow off the roof of the dome. What he wasn't told was that the shotgun shell was No. 9 bird shot in a target load. He took his 12 ga loaded with 00 buckshot, blew a hole in the roof and the dome deflated trapping him under it. It took firefighters propping up the dome to extract him. He was unhurt... and unemployed.
A three foot snow load took down my 50' x 150' steel barn in western WI. a few years back. lost my car collection and most of my business stock. i never recovered from that. Good luck and be careful.
I've seen car dealerships use portable leaf blowers to clear the light fluffy snow from cars on the lot. Might want to give that a try with some extension tubes for the solar panels.
In theory the amount of snow on the roof should not be a problem since it is a rounded roof with supports and that alone will equalize the weight of the snow on to the con boxes. The ratchet straps are just loose because of the curve of the roof is compressing down. I would not want to get them to tight because of when it thaws how they will spring back and might warp the roof in the heat of spring
In theory… until you get enough wet snow that it sags just enough at the crown so it doesn’t slide. Then you get ponding in the fabric, and water/ice collects making it heavier… rinse and repeat until you’ve got enough weight that you can bend the single tube arches. 2011 up here in my part of Alberta after some unseasonal thaw/wet snow cycles in January we had a whole bunch of them come down, mine among them, and two 100 foot long one’s that one of our friends had his collection of antique tractors under. The fabric holds up really well. The weak point was the trusses… At the outside upper thirds, they began to buckle, because there were no cross-ties, after that, the ponding was just made worse as the slope up top diminished, until basically you had a huge block of ice up top that all the wind in the world wouldn’t dislodge, until the steel finally gave out. Now, if you want insurance on this sort of building up here, you need an engineered double tube arch.
I clear my building off as well. I made a snow stick using 1" pvc pipe with a T on the end and 1' stubs out of each side. To use it start at the bottom (I usually start just under the first support) gently push up and let it drop back, Then give the handle a smack and the shock normally knocks the snow off. Try to clear all the bottom sections first to avoid an uneven load on the fabric and clear from bottom to top. Mine is a Clearspan from Farm-Tek and it just turned 19 years old!
you can try taking a small tire without a rim and tie two ropes to it and drag it back and forth over the arch to move the snow off the high areas of the shelter.
I've seen many people accidentally put holes in their car ports with brooms or boards when there's a good amount of snow on there, especially after the tarpaulins age a bit. some 1/4 sticks sometimes work good if it's not too iced up.
Look into 'frostech heat cables, they are 120v heat cable primarily used in roof gutters ect. You can simply plug it in to apply heat. Maybe you can attach them to the solar panel system to keep snow and ice from forming
We got 22 inches of snow in 4 days about half was heavy wet then light and fluffy after that and to top it off -15-20 below zero temps and 30-40 below wind chills ...welcome to Iowa :) nice work with the pew pew.
Normally that's us in Manitoba, but I saw a graphic on the weather channel of the areas experiencing extreme cold and most (or all) of MB wasn't part of it! We just got our first blast of -20's the season. Strange times.
I have spent my entire life living in the Rocky Mountains. The exception is the four years I went to graduate school in Ohio and lived on campus. What I have learned is that folk east of the Mississippi really have no idea what winter is all about. The two times I lived in, "snow country" we didn't call it a winter until we had to literally board up our windows, climb on the roof, shovel snow, and then jump into the mass of very heavy, compact snow. I speak from experience: If you were to give this a day, it would just sluff off.
You should install small industrial vibretors on the roof or structure with a timer or a clock,or even as switch. check on amasson,i got one to screen sand it works well.
I suppose that much snow is kinda rare down there... like 105°f for us up north. If it melts some and freezes again that will make it heavy on your tarps . Enjoy your snow it'll probably melt away soon mine won't be gone until about May...some times June... one year we had snowfall for 10 months it snowed in Sept... and in June but that's rare too. Keep up the good spirits...
Living in Aus, I have no idea about how you live with snow, but could you mount a small motor up high in the frame with an offset flywheel to be a shaker?
Bucket truck and a leaf blower. I live here in TN (Cumberland Furnace) and we got hit with this snow. Rather than shoveling it, fired up the leaf blower and cleared a lot of snow.
Hey there from AZ deserts . 2 weeks of freezing nights here snow on desert floor a few day ago . Your turn . Flagstaff had 52 vehicles piled up over week end . Need a vibratory device or tennis ball , on end of that long broom handle . In 78 Dec . Pampa tx 3 days of -42to -44 below 0 ,with 45 to55 mph breeze,never had wind sock out horizontal so worked 12 hr days . Calculated wind chill 96 below . Two steps from truck walking mustache and beard ice caked . Have fun ,it’s all u can do !
Can you at least sweep off the snow from the lower solar panels you can reach? I've actually seen snow here in Vegas a couple of times in the last 12 years I've been here. It didn't even last much after sunup.
In Northwest Indiana they were calling for 8-12 inches on Friday. We got about 2 inches and rain for the rest of the afternoon. First time I ever had basement water seepage in January!
Oh gosh I HATE SNOW! Feel for you Scott! We had about 9" here where I live in Nor Cal last winter (which is very not normal), wet, heavy stuff, broke down lots of trees, power lines, just a mess. Begone evil snow LOL
Last year I had to bring supplies to my friends who live in the San Bernardino mountains. I have a Duramax swapped H1 Hummer on mattracks that will go about anywhere.
The 0.25 kPa is roughly 5 lbs per square foot (if I did the conversion correctly), which is quite a lot for a fabric structure. Not sure if that's the rating for the frame or for the fabric ..
@@JurBols477 that's on the high end for wet snow. Ranges from 1 lb to 20 lbs per cubic foot, or 0.1 lb to 1.6 lb per inch of depth per square foot. So dry snow he should be real good, wet snow only a few inches.
@MaxxBigg yup, I did try to take that into account. The last really big snow was in the late 80s. It is usually less than an inch. Sometimes you get freezing rain and then a bit of snow. Maybe twice a year at most. I started to say every 10 years. But to CMA, I said 5 years. He is a bit further east and at a bit higher elevation than I am. We still don't get such heavy or repetitive snowfalls to warrant adding shaker motors to the frame to remove snow. Mostly ice, and a shaker motor probably won't help with ice.
I have a purpose built squeegee that I use to pull the snow down. It having a black surface it will melt when it's sunny even if cold. It's not fun but it's 100% human powered.
Just a thought.... if you had a leaf blower with an extended nozzle and used the bucket truck wouldn't that make snow removal easier? the air from the snow blower would be slightly warmer as well.
You could use a real long PVC blow pipe for the solar panels or a real long handle item that vibrates. Last time I saw that kind of snow was Roanoke, Va. 1st day of spring 1982 - 12 inches. Maybe throw the long ropes over like you pulled the cover up to pull long ways.
Just used a 24 inch push broom to bounce ice off a green house. Use the bristles to bounce the plastic starting low. Need drop space for snow/ice to go.
Scott got some information for you it's 100 x 100 and we store all of our bumpers and raw material in it it's closed at both ends but we don't have no trouble slowly runs off the top
Get one of those Pool brooms with the long telescoping aluminum handles, such works good for me to pull off leaves off my metal roof in Fla. without getting on the roof
When i saw him in the picture with the pew pew. I thought it was an airsoft that he was shooting on the underside to make the snow fall off. I was thinking thats an authentic looking airsoft then i heard you say not to shoot the hose and heard it and was like nope thats a pew pew!😂😂
You need some gizmo that can vibrate the frame, wich will cause the snow to slide off. Do you have a portable leaf blower? Borrow one and give it a shot.
Of course there is snow inside the shelter roof as the ends are wide open. And the snow won't slide off the roof with those solar panels bolted on there. Some work to be done to enjoy the benefits of a shelter free of snow inside.. Good video of what to expect.
@@BusGreaseMonkey Wonder if you could tarp the open ends and run a large heater inside for a while? They use them a lot here in Manitoba Canada for new apartment buildings under construction (I think hoarding is the term) They even do that when pouring concrete foundations, but apparently the builders often remove them too soon. I sure wouldn't want a home built in the middle of winter with the way they rush through the builds now. I know a guy who had to pull the vapour barrier and insulation away from his basement walls not too long after as the concrete wasn't fully cured and caused mold. I just found a local guys video from 2011 showing a tarped building! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I8sX1WOGFNI.htmlsi=fPPbDsdBD-r_86Ss
If you heat the metal poles it may produce enough water to slide off from the top. If there is enough Iron in them you an use induction heating with electricity.
Take a small fractional hp motor (1/4 or 1/3) and mount a bar offset on the shaft to make a vibrator and hang it from the underside of the dome. Especially if you can run it off a speed control to tune the vibration to resonate gently thru the structure. Fast short wave for a few minutes to loosen then long slow wave resonance and I think your snow problem will go away. Or use a base box with whatever the thumper "music" the riceburner guys use that bulges the windows on their Hondas. Kind of a directional sound cannon.
Attach a electric vibrator to the framework. All you have to do is turn the switch on for a minute. And the vibration will shake everything off. It does better than beating the frame with a hammer.
Not sure that roof is really worth the trouble. It doesn’t keep the snow off the vehicles and it’s not sturdy enough to hold up under a little bit of snow. Hmmm 🤔
I remember when I got satellite TV, the dish on the roof the next night we got 15"of snow, I absolutely lost my mind when I was outside trying to get the snow off the dish. Muthfked everything 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
I see lots of folks tightening those winch straps..especially truck drivers which I was one. Take a regular hammer ,put the claw side in it and you have a great lever for those winches and you will never get them that tight by hand…old truck driver tip. Try it.
I wonder if you could take an electric motor somehow and put a weight on the output shaft off-center, so that it would cause a vibration and you could take that and put it up against that metal frame and turn it on and see if it wouldn’t vibrate the snow off the tarp dome….
Never say never, we are below freezing for the past 4 days. Looks like a vedeo game poking the snow free from the top of your portable garage. Nasty just about all over the country. Stay safe and warm.
