Standing Seam Metal Roof with Snowbars
Poplar, WI
Living in Northern Wisconsin means preparing your home for some of the harshest winter weather in the midwest. A recent project completed by our team in Poplar, Wisconsin provides an excellent example of how the right roofing materials can eliminate winter maintenance headaches entirely.
For this residential property, we installed a heavy-duty standing seam metal roofing system integrated with a premium snowbar system. This combination protects the structure from structural ice damage while protecting the perimeter of the home from dangerous snow slides.
The Winter Challenge for Homeowners in Douglas County
Property owners around Poplar, Superior, and the South Shore deal with intense lake-effect snow, freezing rain, and rapid temperature shifts. Traditional asphalt shingles often fail prematurely in these environments because water gets trapped under the shingles during freeze-thaw cycles, leading to severe ice dams.
When ice dams form, water backs up into the roof deck, damaging insulation and interior drywall. Metal roofing solves this problem fundamentally. The smooth surface allows snow to slide off before it can melt and refreeze at the eaves.
Why Concealed Fastener Standing Seam is the Smart Choice
Not all metal roofs are engineered the same way. For this Poplar home, we utilized a concealed fastener standing seam system rather than a lower-grade, exposed-fastener corrugated panel roof.
The Engineering Advantage:
Hidden Fasteners: The screws are entirely protected beneath interlocking steel panels. They are never exposed to rain, ice, or UV rays. This completely removes the risk of dried-out rubber washers or leaky screw holes down the road.
Thermal Expansion: Metal expands and contracts as temperatures swing from sub-zero winter nights to hot summer days. Standing seam panels clip to the roof deck in a way that allows the metal to expand and contract naturally without pulling at the fasteners.
Thicker Steel Gauge: We utilize high-grade, thick-gauge steel that resists denting from falling branches, heavy ice buildup, or severe hail storms.
Managing the Avalanche: How Snowbars Protect Your Property
While a metal roof is excellent because it sheds snow quickly, that benefit creates a secondary safety issue. Hundreds of pounds of packed snow and ice can slide off a slick metal roof all at once. This "roof avalanche" can easily tear down gutters, crush expensive landscaping, smash decks, or injure anyone standing below the eaves.
To prevent this, our crew installed color-matched snowbars directly onto the standing seam ribs.
How the Snow Retention System Works:
Zero Roof Penetration: The snowbars use specialized clamps that grip the raised seams tightly. We do not drill any holes into the roof surface, keeping the watertight seal perfectly intact.
Controlled Melting: The bars act as a barrier that holds the heavy snow blanket in place. This forces the snow to melt slowly and drain away through the gutter system as water, rather than dropping as a massive block of ice.
Strategic Placement: We positioned these retention bars over the high-traffic areas of the Poplar home, including the main entryways, walkways, and over the garage doors.
Collins Roofing and Sheet Metal handles residential and commercial metal roofing installations throughout the entire Twin Ports region, Northern Minnesota, and Northwest Wisconsin. Because our primary office and shop facilities are located nearby in Cloquet, MN, and we have dedicated local crews, we understand exactly how to build roofs that stand up to our specific local climate conditions.
We handle the entire process from custom onsite roll-forming to the final installation of safety components like snow guards.