It’s a well known truth to all Calgary citizens that winter is the hardest season to cope with. Beyond the frigid temperatures and whipping winds to cope with, there is the never ending battle against snow piling up in dangerous and frustrating snowbanks. It’s such a big problem across the city that there are entire businesses dedicated to both residential and commercial snow removal, and the savings in time and effort mean that they always have a loyal customer base each winter season.
How Shovelling Damages Your Deck
While these companies do a great job on driveways and sidewalks, they tend not to deal with your outdoor spaces as they are harder to get to and harder to clear. This leaves you with the unenviable task of trying to shovel snow off your deck to prevent water damage and ice wedging. However, shovelling can be extremely damaging to your deck in a number of ways:
- Scrapes and scratches on your boards – the most obvious form of damage to your deck from shovelling is scraping and scratching the boards themselves with the edge of your shovel. Even if you’re using a plastic blade to clear the ice and snow, you’ll still make dents and marks in the wood which leaves it unprotected against further storms. As water gets into your boards, it will start to decay the wood and create a long list of repairs come spring time.
- Snow is pushed further in – most decks in Calgary are made of boards with small gaps in between. As you shovel the majority of the snow off your deck, a small percentage of it will get pushed into these gaps. Left untreated, these blocks of ice will freeze further and expand, causing untold structural damage to your deck.
- Constant moving of furniture – finally, to fully clear your deck from snow, you’ll need to move your furniture to get all the snow out. This constant shuffling around will cause damage to the surface of the boards, which again puts your deck at risk of decay and water damage.
Get Protected With A Patio Cover
Fortunately, there is a way to save your deck from the perils of shovelling: a patio cover. At its simplest, a patio cover is a permanent structure that connects to your home and extends out over your entire deck. It’s supported on the opposite side by posts or columns, and the roof of the patio cover is where you’ll save on shovelling this winter. Typically, the roof will be made of corrugated vinyl or aluminum, and will slope down away from your home. Not only will this protect your deck from worst of the winter storms, but it will also make it so the snow will simply slide off by itself as the temperatures rise, leaving you with no shovelling to do and no snow clean up from your patio roof. If this sounds like a winter wonderland, call Desert Sun Patios today to start your patio cover project today.
