Tips in Dealing with Heavy Snow

On December 18th my area received a tremendous snowfall. And as I live in a mobile home the weight of the huge amount of snow, about 22 inches, became a concern. Roofs have collapsed under less weight. I was puzzled as to how to rectify this situation before another snow fall came along.

Looking through the back of the garage I came up with a couple of lengths of rope and a piece of 2 x 4 and set about with a plan that might just work. I drilled a one inch hole in either end of the piece of timber and inserting one end of my rope through the hole,I tied a knot too big to slip back through.

Back outside I tossed the 2 x 4 onto the roof and used the ropes to drag it back off again...bringing mounds of snow with it. Problem solved.

It wasn't long before the snow plows were out clearing the road and as they did it became apparent that it was going to be difficult for me to even get to my mailbox much less for the mail carrier to get there too. The mailbox was set well off the edge of the road to escape the snowplows to begin with. As we do not usually get this kind of snow this was a good solution. Now however, the post was buried right up to the mail box itself and there was a piled up ridge of snow three feet high and four feet across from the edge of the road to the mail box post. To make matters worse, the post was now leaning back at a sharp degree.

I mounted the frozen snow bank and removed the mailbox and took it with me back to the garage. I had some 4 x 4 poles in there and I had an idea of how to handle this particular problem.

I lined a milk crate with card board and using a bag of quick setting cement I poured about two inches of cement into the bottom of the crate. Then I dropped in the measured and cut 4 x 4 and piled several bricks around it. I filled the rest of the crate with the cement and then used a level along the sides of the 4 x 4 to get it vertical.

While the cement was setting I took a spud bar and a shovel and dug a crate sized hole into the snow bank. Once the cement had set I fastened the mailbox to the 4 x 4 and carried the whole thing back out to the road and dropped it into the hole. Instant mailbox. This had an added advantage in that the mailbox assembly was easily moved but to heavy to blow down. And if another snow storm shows up I can rock the mailbox out of the snow and reposition it.