SnowLoadCheck

Hamblen County, TN Roof Snow Load - 10 psf

Hamblen County, TN roof snow load, translated

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10 psf

A typical heated home in Hamblen County is designed to carry 10 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Hamblen County are actually governed by ASCE 7's §7.3.4 minimum of 10 psf, not the 7 psf the ground-load formula alone would produce.

On a roof that means 22 in. of fresh snow, 8 in. once it packs down, or 2 in. of solid ice - three very different piles for the same load. Standard residential construction handles a load this size without extra bracing; it is a modest addition on top of ordinary roof loading.

Hamblen County in numbers

Where Hamblen County ranks

#24 of 95 Tennessee counties by design load, top 63% of 2,758 nationally - that's Hamblen County's spot. That's 0.3 psf below Tennessee's own county-average design load of 10.3 psf.

FIPS 47063, population 67,715, centered near 36.2184°N 83.2661°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 10 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 10 psf design figure above.

Hamblen County: average annual snowfall

Hamblen County sees about 8.8 in. of snow most winters, per the MORRISTOWN RADIO WCRK, TN US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.

Read this before you use Hamblen County's figure

The figure above assumes the case ASCE 7-22 treats as typical: a heated, ordinary-occupancy home on a partially exposed site. Change any of those - exposure, heating, roof pitch, occupancy category - and the real design number moves.

A building permit needs the number at your exact address, not the county average - the free ASCE 7 Hazard Tool returns that from your coordinates in about a minute and produces a PDF a plan reviewer will accept. (How this figure is calculated.)