Yesterday marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year festival and celebrations for over a billion people worldwide. If you are turning 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, 108 or 120, then this year of the snake should be a prosperous one for you! Just as a point of interest, it is not just the Chinese that celebrate the Lunar New Year but the Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mongolians, and several other nations as well, in addition of course to the ex-pat communities of these cultures worldwide.

So, in the spirit of Asian-inspired new beginnings, we thought we’d show you an image of some rather grandiose looking roofs from the forbidden city in Beijing, China. One of our staff spent several months living, working, and studying in the region a couple of years back and found the roof design and architecture to be quite unique and appealing. However, although snowfall in most parts of China does not rival the conditions of America’s snow country, there is certainly still a clear need for snow guard and roof protection in the area, where ice commonly builds during the winter. Check out this crazy video below of a rather uniquely patterned fall of snow and ice avalanche in China:

If you’ve listened, read, or watched the news today, you may be aware that a massive snowstorm is headed for the East Coast of the U.S. over the next several days. Like all natural disasters and hazards, when the time for performance has come, the time for preparation has passed… make sure you are not caught off-guard at a time of vulnerability like this snow scare in the East. Snow guards or snow shields can give you peace of mind when tumultuous weather springs up like a thief in the night to take your property!

We’ve all heard of the “calm before the storm” and how we should all needfully prepare for rough times ahead. I remember in my teen years as I was learning to surf, about being told that every 7th wave would be the biggest; for newcomers in the water we would often notice their failure to understand the patterns of the tides and waves and see them get caught off-guard as a result, ending up in great danger and needing to get saved. Unfortunately most tests of strength (be it spiritually, intellectually, or structurally) are not so predictable, but history’s wisdom has taught us that periods of prosperity and/or calm are times for preparation–not complacency.

If you are in the East, be safe, plan well, and hopefully the storm will pass quickly. But for all of us, let’s try our best to not get caught off-guard.

Isn’t it funny how once you learn something new or are exposed to something fresh and different, that you start to notice that particular fact or thing or word in places that you never previously considered? Yesterday one of our friends who just recently learned about what we do at Sno Shield, e-mailed us this picture (below) of sliding ice and snow outside his window, with a caption along the lines of “saw this and thought of you.” We’ve had employees in the past too who had started to notice the same kinds of snow and ice dangers on roofs on just about every street they passed after starting working for us.

The need to be exposed to new ideas, ways, or facts of life is a great one for all of humanity, regardless of our natural or biased tendencies and preferences. Forcing ourselves to work outside of our comfort zone or to learn about something new and foreign expedites the life-learning process for us and leaves us better prepared for whatever the future has in store for us. As Pasteur’s famous tenet states, “chance favors the prepared mind,” and learning or seeking for new experiences very much sets the stage for that prepared state.

As the Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, wrote, we often see life like we are “looking through a glass darkly”–our perspectives are always skewed somewhat by the experiences we have had rather than the ones we haven’t. Thus, it can be easier for third parties to spot our ignorance even when we think we are being objective or unbiased. As such, breaking out of our socially constructed bubbles requires we try something new, that we associate with a new group of people, or at least hear them out and seek to understand where they are coming from. Be it our workplace, hobbies, communities, religion, or ideologies, all of our cultural paradigms have restrictions that prevent us from truly understanding the truth of the matter, whether it is the answer to the purpose of life, the answer to the best tax rate, or the answer to how many snow guards one should buy.

Life and its proclivities are far too complex to be answered by one mind, so take Plato’s advice and do what you can today to break out of your cave, and you might find that you find something new outside your window.

Here in the rocky mountains we have some of the best snow on earth. Long before the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, skiers and snowboarders were coming from all around the world to enjoy our mountains and our fresh snow. As we were browsing around on youtube this morning to see if we could find any product videos on snow railing, we instead only found a bunch of gnarly clips of pro snow boarders pulling off sweet rail slides and thought that they would at least be sharing! As for rail gliding on our rail guard product, while we know it can withstand the force and pressure, we wouldn’t recommend surfing too hard on anyone’s roof–for your sake as well as theirs!

SLIDE ON OUR RAILS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

We love snow because it gives us great business, but you can’t beat a bit of warm sunshine to brighten up your day. For some folks in various parts of the country or world who live through a distinct snowy and a distinct sunny season each year, protecting roofed solar panels is something that can easily be omitted when thinking about seasonal roof protection.

The good news is that most conventional solar panel types are completely compatible with out panel guard and/or railing systems. Of course, given the slickness of glass or plastic surfaces against tile or metal roofs, the liability of avalanching snow falling is even greater than normal. In most cases, using a peel back adhesive panel guard and/or SB-190 sealant to secure your Sno Shield panel guard will be the most effective option for avalanche retention on your solar panels.

Given the nature of the glass panel materials, solar panels tend to conduct heat much more efficiently, thus melting the snow quicker than standard roofs, which is great because it clears the panels so they can start taking in more sunlight; however on that same token, snow retention is less stable and dangerous avalanches more likely.

In addition to protecting your property however, adding panel guards to your solar panel system may have added benefits beyond standard snow protection… the greater surface area and reflective material of the clear guard can magnify the sun’s rays and energy potential! Although originally designed to provide an efficient but sturdy surface area to dissipate the snow load, our panel guard’s unique (and aesthetic!) triangular design also provides an enhanced area for light absorption. While more of our own scientific tests would be needed to certify this characteristic, this British study on solar panel efficiency affirms the positive effect of reflective materials being used to increase solar panel output!

Here at Sno Shield we love the outdoors, but when we’re indoors we like to be sure our shelter is warm and well protected. It is little wonder then that we are big fans of British ex-SAS survival guru Bear Grylls. Like us, when he is out and about in snow country he likes to be sure that his shelter will protect him from the brutal elements and snow avalanches that are common in any cold winter season. But who’d have thought that you could use snow to build a reliable temporary shelter against snow itself!

While our snow-shelter building experience is limited, our knowledge of roof types and snow guards is second to none… when it comes to shielding your shelter from the snow, we know how our snow guards can help you preserve that ever so valuable roof over your head!

For those of us living in snow country, these last few days have reminded us all of the need to protect ourselves from this great white element. Driving to work yesterday reminded us of this amusing (below), but sobering video taken in Bountiful, Utah, about the same time last year; within the space of just a few minutes there are several crashes, 360s, cars in yards, and other white-nuckle rides that occur on one short strip of residential road.

But for roofers and folks like us in the snow guard industry, the words “sliding snow” mean something quite different altogether… rather than cars sliding on roads, the term to us conveys snow gradually sliding over time on roof surfaces to form some pretty cool-looking, but dangerous and damaging sculptures like in the images below. When large build-ups occur without being managed by controlled snow guard or melting systems, massive avalanches can end up crashing down to destroy not just roof structures, but people, plants, vehicles, and other valuable property. If you are seeing any thing like the picture below, or the beginning of such with snow and ice forming over the edge of the eave, then installing snow guards could end up saving your life!