snow in the valley

[carnahanad]

Hello,

I'm working on a wood truss project with numerous valley's as the ridges change direction freaquently. I've got the balanced and unbalanced loads for the simple peaked roofs, but what about the snow load in the valley? ASCE 7 doesn't cover this well (or at least as well as I can tell). Do I need to treat one side of the valley as the "high roof" and design for the drift that may accumulate?

Thanks for the opinions.

 

[woodman88]

I now would use the sawtooth roof values from ASCE 7-05 Figure 7-6 for the balanced and unbalanced load cases.

Garth Dreger PE
AZ Phoenix area

 

[vandede427]

I think woodman is right, use the sawtooth values. As a quick and dirty, the valley load is typically twice the normal load.

 

[carnahanad]

Thanks for the help! That makes a lot of sense to treat it like a saw tooth

 

[dcarr82775]

The App to Chapter 16 of the old UBC97 has a method to use for snow in valleys