Roof Replacement and Metal Roofing in Fairbanks

What Fairbanks winters do to a roof

Fairbanks gets less snow than Anchorage, about 65 inches in a normal season, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Snow covers the ground about 190 days a year, from mid-October to late April, and the air is so calm in midwinter, with average winds of about 2 mph or less in December and January, that very little blows off. Most roofs carry the whole winter’s snow.

Some winters are much bigger. Fairbanks topped 90 inches in 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2025-26, and the spring of 2021 brought a string of collapses: a building supply store in mid-March, then a fuel warehouse, the Ester fire station, and a building on Leasure Street in the first week of April.

Rain makes it worse. On December 26, 2021, Fairbanks got 1.93 inches of precipitation in a single day, the city’s third-highest daily total on record. Most of it fell as rain, with a high of 41°F, and a week later the low was -47°F.

Snow load and older Fairbanks roofs

The City of Fairbanks sets a minimum roof snow load of 50 pounds per square foot (psf) for new houses, and a ground snow load of 60. Older buildings were built to less. The City’s Building Official said in 2026 that roughly 80 percent of Fairbanks buildings predate the current standard and were built to 40 psf, and some to even less.

Outside the city limits of Fairbanks and North Pole, in Goldstream, Chena Ridge, Two Rivers, and the rest of the Borough, there’s no building code for houses. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) warns that snow loads of 30 to 35 psf can bring some roofs down, and that mobile homes can be built to carry as little as 20.

Ice dams and attic frost happen here too

It’s too cold for the sun to melt roof snow most of the winter, so Fairbanks ice dams come from inside the house. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center calls them a relatively common sight in Fairbanks in midwinter, caused by air leaking from the living space into the roof, too little insulation, or too little ventilation. Frost on the underside of the roof deck has the same source: in almost all cases, CCHRC says, it’s moist indoor air escaping through the ceiling.

That’s why our inspection includes the attic and the ventilation. Both the City of Fairbanks and North Pole deleted the code section that allows unvented attics, and CCHRC calls a vented cold roof the best option in a cold climate.

Permits and code in Fairbanks and North Pole

The City of Fairbanks enforces the 2018 International Residential Code with local amendments, and North Pole uses the same code with nearly the same changes. Both require ice barrier from the eave to 36 inches inside the exterior wall on standard trusses, membrane at least 18 inches each side of every valley, and full self-adhered membrane on a 2:12 roof.

North Pole requires a permit when roof work changes the frame or structure, but not to reshingle. The City of Fairbanks doesn’t say either way whether a new roof needs one, so we confirm with its building department before work starts. Outside the cities, the Borough has no building permits.

Metal roofs in Fairbanks

Metal is our specialty, and the snow question is the same here as anywhere: where does it go when it comes off? Standing seam lets snow go all at once, and CCHRC notes that snow hitting a deck on the way down lands with many times its resting weight. So standing seam gets snow guards over entries and decks. Stone-coated steel holds snow in place much like a shingle roof, and still gets guards over doors, decks, and walkways. Metal roofing →

Wildfire and your roof

Fire season is part of Fairbanks life. The 2019 Shovel Creek Fire put Goldstream Valley neighborhoods on evacuation alert, and in June 2025 more than 5,000 Fairbanks-area residents were under some form of evacuation order. The Borough’s 2006 wildfire plan says to replace wood shingle roofs with fire-resistant ones, and Alaska’s Firewise guide counts metal and asphalt shingles as non-combustible roofing.

Where we work around Fairbanks

Fairbanks, North Pole, College, Badger, Chena Ridge, Goldstream, Farmers Loop, Steele Creek, Ester, and Two Rivers, for planned replacements, metal roofs, and inspections.