X-Gard™ 1.0 - Clamp on Snow guards for Metal Roofs

When snow avalanches off a rooftop, it can damage anything in its path. This sudden release of snow can be dramatic—dumping tons of snow all at once. Falling snow forms a temperature-sensitive bond to the surface of a metal roof. As that roof warms, whether from the sun or from building heat loss, the bond with the snow is broken and a thin film of melt water serves to lubricate the roof. This can have dramatic results as a several-ton blanket of snow suddenly slides off the roof and avalanches down upon anything in its path: gutters, vehicles, landscape, even people. Once piled up below, that same snowbank can cause additional troubles, like direct damage to the building walls or even indirect damage caused by funneling melt water into, rather than away from, the wall. This is what makes snow retention devices desirable: they hold the snow back and allow it to leave the roof slowly, either in small amounts of snow or as meltwater, avoiding the dual calamity of the avalanche.

S-5! snow retention systems are attached using S-5! clamping technology. S-5! attachments are all mechanical, and squeeze the seam with round-point setscrews. S-5! attachments features and benefits:

• No unreliable adhesives
• No panel penetration
• Doesn’t violate the panels’ thermal movement
• Unequaled holding strength
• No premature corrosion
• Doesn’t violate roof system warranties
• Recommended by all leading metal building and metal panel manufacturers

S-5! clamps use round-point setscrews to firmly grip the seam of a roof without penetrating its panel material. Our clamping technology is so unique, it carries its own patent.

Compare approaches: Copycat clamps use “cup-point” screws that cut through the paint and protective coating on roof panels, allowing corrosion to set in while voiding the warranty of the roof. But S-5! clamps come with our round-point setscrews, which are guaranteed not to puncture your panels or affect your roof’s warranty. We have done 1,000 hour ASTM B-117 Salt Fog testing on S-5! system clamps, attaching them to painted Galvalume® and galvanized panels. The result: zero corrosion. In addition, S-5! customers can rest assured all of our related hardware is noncorrosive, 300 series stainless, not plated steel.

Our S-5! attachment methodology has been thoroughly tested for tenacity and has proven itself unrivaled in the industry. And, since the holding strength of any clamp will vary across different roof profiles, material types and gages, S-5! performs hundreds of independent laboratory pull tests on every roof type available, and we’ve posted the results for your review here.

With an ultimate load-to-failure average of more than 1,800 pounds (and as high as 3,000+ pounds), S-5! clamps remain unsurpassed. In fact, the holding strength of our clamps is up to 10 times greater than alternative products!

Yes, ColorGard®, X-Gard™, DualGard™ and SnoFence™ can easily be retrofitted to existing roofs or incorporated into new construction design. They can be installed any time of the year using power tools common to the trade.

Yes! Contractors everywhere love the ease of assembly, the simplicity and the durability of our S-5! snow retention systems. This should come as no surprise because the S-5! systems were designed by a contractor who was tired of inferior products that were wretched to install and performed poorly. These systems were then field tested and refined in the Colorado Rocky Mountains where snow challenges are extreme. The result was a line of unsurpassed snow retention systems based on S-5! clamping technology.

Why upgrade from adhesive-based systems?

Today’s metal roof products have premium finishes made from fluorocarbons similar in composition to Teflon, the popular nonstick coating on cookware. These paint resins, Hylar® and Kynar® by trade name, are wonderful performing finishes never intended for glue-on type snow retention systems. People continue to try testing this combination, but an adhesive device on a nonstick surface continues to offer high failure rates. In addition, most adhesives are temperature-cure compounds. This limits their application to warm weather only and can take weeks to fully cure.

Note too, that adhesives are chemically organic compounds. Ozone and ultraviolet light cause the chemical bonds to degrade over time. This means an adhesive tested for ultimate load-to-failure in a laboratory may well show favorable results. But, after five or 10 years of exposure to heat cycling, UV radiation, moisture and ozone, the weakened chemical bond often causes the system to fail at unacceptably low loads. Will that happen on your roof? No one can say for sure, and it’s that very issue of unpredictability that makes adhesives a risky choice. Our S-5! attachment technology, on the other hand, is mechanical, stable and predictable. It’s derived from non-corrosive metals unaffected by temperature, UV light or ozone. Their attachment performance does not change over time—if you love it today, you’ll still love it 50 years from now.

Note: When relying upon lab tested load figures, the setscrew tension should be periodically verified using a calibrated wrench.

Yes—any product should be—including those sold by other companies. Everything has a failure point, which is why products are tested. The idea, then, is not to expose a product to forces which exceed its known point of failure. These forces are predictable and can be calculated accurately for any application. Ask your distributor for assistance or try our Snow Retention Calculator.