CPS tackles unique Colorado projects

By Rocky Mountain Snow Guards.

Why these Coloradans contractors keep choosing Rocky Mountain Snow Guards for their challenging projects.

In the mountains of Colorado, fear of wildfire spread is of such high concern that many homeowners and commercial property owners are replacing their roofs with fire-rated composite materials. For DCPS, a one-stop provider for commercial property services, this has meant a variety of challenging projects in recent years. These have resulted in beautiful new roofing assemblies for the owners, complete with extensive snow retention systems.

McCoy Peak Lodge

At an elevation of 8,100 feet, Beaver Creek, Colorado gets between 235 and 325 inches of snow each year. The stunning seven-story McCoy Peak Lodge multi-unit condo building is a ski-in/ski-out resort made to take advantage of snow season. Unfortunately, the old copper metal shingles and concrete tiles overhead were not protecting the structure from the potential of fire.

To upgrade both the appearance of the lodge and its fire rating, the owners decided to switch to a DaVinci Multi-Width Slate roof. The DCPS team was brought in to work on the 10/12 pitch roof project for a seven-month period.

“Because of the slippery nature of composite roofs like DaVinci, we knew a solid snow retention system would be needed for the lodge,” says Charles Hall, roofing division manager with DCPS. “There’s no one better than Rocky Mountain Snow Guards to handle challenges like this. We went to them with the roofing layout and had them do a comprehensive plan."

He went on, “They recommended the Drift II fence-style snow fence product placement between some rows of the Everest Guard EG 16 Dark Bronze snow guards on long stretches of roof. Then we had long soldier rows of the EG 16s on other open roof spaces. We even added snow retention to the many dormer windows on this project. Together this is an effective snow retention system for the McCoy Peak Lodge.”

Arrowhead River Ranch

Six miles away, in Edwards, Colorado is Arrowhead River Ranch. Residents at the 20-home HOA community determined this year it was time to have the old, brittle wood shakes removed from their homes. They were influenced in their decision by insurance requirements to have higher fire rated materials on their roofs that meet Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) standards.

"We worked with this community to have synthetic slate from DaVinci® Roofscapes installed on all their homes,” says Charles. “This composite material is Class A fire rated, so it meets the insurance qualifications. However, composite materials are quite slick, since they do not absorb water. This means they especially need a reliable snow retention system to hold back accumulating snows from avalanching all at one time.”

For the Arrowhead River Ranch project, Everest Guard EG 10 Dark Bronze snow guards were selected for the roof system. Once again, the team at DCPS worked with the team at Rocky Mountain Snow Guards to gain the free takeoff on the roof to determine the placement of the snow guards.

“Our reputation for excellence makes organizations like Arrowhead River Ranch come to us for challenging projects like this,” says Charles. “Interestingly, it’s their reputation for excellence that has us returning again and again to Rocky Mountain Snow Guards for their snow retention services and products.”