We have had multiple snow falls, starting with over a foot of heavy wet snow. I use a Shelter Logic Shed in a Box down on our sport court to store my boat over the winter. The heavy snow stuck to the shed roof instead of just falling off, like dry snow would, resulting in a shed failure.
Failure in the Making
Normally, I would go down and remove the snow from the shed roof but because of my hip issues I didn’t want to wade through the snow. In hindsight, I should have made the effort. With subsequent snows and rain, the snow load became too great and the shed failed. It collapsed onto the boat, as shown in the picture
The next step will be to go down and remove the snow from what is left of the shed, before it melts into the boat and causes any more damage.
3/19/23 & 3/20/23
Five weeks after hip replacement I finally felt well enough to investigate. What I found was pretty discouraging. All of the snow that caused the roof failure had turned to ice. In places, it has to be 2 feet thick. So I started busting ice with a pick. I was able to remove maybe 40% of the ice before what remained was out of reach. The snow around the shed is deep and pretty solid. That is good and bad. Good from the standpoint that I can stand on it but bad in that it will be difficult to get the ATV and chipper out of the shed if I want to start working from the ground.
3/21/23
I spent two days digging out the remaining ice and broken structural pieces. I decided that the tarps were damaged and it would be safer working from the ground so I cut the tarps from the inside. There is a picture that shows the ice that was exposed. What isn’t obvious is that the ice actually was at least a foot thicker because the tarps sagged into the boat. Working from the ground I was able to break up and remove the thick ice mass.
3/22/23
The next day, I drained the water, removed the remaining ice chunks and slush. I pulled off the traps and got my first good look at the damaged structural components. I removed them and was finally able to get to the boat. My initial inspection didn’t show any significant damage but time will tell.
