Most people know that freezing conditions can play havoc with holiday homes, with bursting water pipes and damp being the main causes of worry; but there’s another issue which needs to be considered when leaving your holiday home over the Winter period, the build up of snow and ice on your roof.
Last year we saw a huge number of holiday homes damaged due to the large amounts of snow causing roofs to simply collapse under the weight, with flat roofed static caravans being the most susceptable. James McConnell runs a park in the North East that’s been on the receiving end of Mother Nature’s worst,
“The Damage was really odd, I’ve never seen anything similar in 27 years of park operations, we had so much snow that the weight of it buckled in the roofs.”
Leisuredays recommend that providing you can reach your holiday home safely, it is a good idea to sweep excess snow from the roof, or speak to the park operator and find out how they can help or what they would recommend you do. Of course, even with the best of precautions a sudden severe snow fall can still catch you off guard, which is why James’ praise of our claims service at the time is good to hear,
“Leisuredays were on the case pretty damn quick, and gave me a contact who handled all the customers’ issues, they really made things simple for us. All my customers who were with Leisuredays had their claims approved and resolved in a matter of weeks; some who chose to insure with others have still not got a settlement 8 months later.”
Sharon Hudson, from our Claims Liaison Team, works closely with Caravan Guard’s insurance underwriter RSA to ensure claims move along quickly and are dealt with fairly. She explains why the snow caused such a problem,
“The unprecedented amount of snow that fell over the last two winters, combined with freezing temperatures, caused problems for hundreds of our customers, but this park and others in the North East were particularly badly hit. Because there was heavy snowfall for a prolonged period of time the snow built up on the roof of the units and became more and more compacted until the roof simply couldn’t support the weight.”
It’s not certain how much snow we will receive this winter, but what has been forecast fairly definitively is that the UK will see some very cold weather and icy conditions. It’s for this reason that you should ensure your holiday home is properly drained down and “winterized” when not in use over the colder months, in order to avoid burst water pipes and large scale damage.
If you would like more information on winterizing your holiday home, Leisuredays recently issued some advice on How and Why Static Caravans and Holiday Lodges are drained down.
For a flat roof cover it with the black plastic farmers use to wrap animal feed. This has worked for me for over 10 years and the farmer is happy to get rid of the stuff. Keep it for the following year as it is very tough and resists the sun. Snow cannot get a grip and just slides off the glossy surface.
Good tip James!