Snowman Math

Bolero

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I'm interested that the roofs there on townhouses aren't generally flat or for walking, as the roofs here on brownstones are. Many of the brownstones are from the mid-late 1800s (so perhaps it's a later thing if the London ones are earlier),
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All that said, don't a lot of London townhouses have back gardens? They do here, but I think they do there as well?

Depending on which bit of London, terraced housing can be anything from 1700s to today. Its most usual to have a pitched roof, covered in slate or tile - gutters front and back. Sometimes you have what looks like a pitched roof from the street, but is missing the top of the triangle and is flat on top. I did once live in a run of terraced houses that I think were from the 1930s - and they had a flat roof. We weren't supposed to have roof access but we'd all climb up there through the hatch on the top landing and sit up there to sunbathe, well away from the knee high parapet. Not exactly safe, but beat being indoors. UK house builders are still putting up terraced houses with pitched slate roof on estates today. And really small rooms. Not totally guaranteed that the newer the house the smaller the rooms, but in a given price bracket, in the same area, it is a pretty useful rule. Also a "double" bedroom should be one that can take a double bed - but a lot of new stuff is at the size where you can fit in a double bed, but the door bumps on it when you open it, and you are struggling to fit in more than a dressing table and a wardrobe either side of the bed head.

Having looked at your links - they are gorgeous - and big. A lot of London, once you are out of the centre, are two storey Victorian terraces. You mostly get the tall four/five storey town houses in the centre, or in the centres of what used to be separate towns that were swallowed up by London.
 
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Old Hack

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I had a look at some gorgeous London terraces this afternoon, via Google Maps. If you look at Kensington (I looked at Emperor's Gate because it's a lovely road) you can see that many of the houses have what appear to be flat roofs. But they're not: they are pitched. And as they're covered in either lead or roofing felt they can't be walked upon unless some sort of walkway is added.

A friend of mine lived in a house which had been converted into flats, many years ago. It was in Fulham, I think, nearish Olympia. She built a roof terrace and got into all sorts of trouble with the freeholders when they found out: she had to take it all down, and do lots of repairs as the roof terrace decking made the roof leak like a sieve.

Retrofitting is not always a good idea.

I used to live in a red brick terrace in Harringay. That definitely had a pitched roof, because there were attic rooms. It was a lovely house.
 

Bolero

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To OP - be aware that if your character is from the UK, there is a big tendency to refer to architectural styles by the reign of the monarch - at least until you get to the 20th century.
So
Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Queen Anne, Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian.
Then it is a mix of "between the wars" or "Art Deco" (if it is) or post-war. Post-war means post WW2 and is often not that complementary - can refer to stuff chucked up quick to replace things that were bombed. Then it is '50s, '60s etc.
The example Brownstone from the 1890s - that period would be "late Victorian" here.
I put in a search for "late Victorian London terraced" and here are the results

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=l...hURCuwKHaJ1DtoQ9QEIKjAA#imgrc=Fp6PxFKL034ZrM:

Some of them are the sort of tall ones like the brownstone.

Also FYI, flat roofs are unpopular with UK council planning departments as they tend to leak. Some fancy modern houses do get built that way, but they'd have to do a lot of design to make sure it was watertight. At the least, the council would prefer a gentle slope on a "flat" roof - so there is drain off from the bitumen.
(The flat roof I sat on years back was actually coated in some sort of spray on metallic paint is what it looked like, then topped with tar and gravel. We were all careful to wear flat shoes and not damage the roof.)
 
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JDlugosz

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If you don't have enough snow, you can make the snowman look bigger by making it flat or building around a form etc. Make snowballs with packing peanuts mixed in…
 

Bolero

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Packing peanut?

As a UK person not heard that one before. Is that what I'd call polystyrene packing? Or foam packing? The bits of shaped polystyrene foam that are in boxes around items?
 

Orianna2000

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Packing peanuts are small bits of foam, rather stiff, usually shaped like compact S's or squished figure 8's. I can't imagine using them to pad out a snowball, though. Probably because the ones I see are usually either pink or green. Only rarely are they white or cream-colored.

It's looking like I may have to totally rethink the roof scenes. I don't know how, though. They don't have any yard space that I'm aware of, and even if they did, it'd be pretty small. I might be able to relocate the snow scene to a nearby park, if there is one. I'll have to check Google Maps. But the reunion scene? That's going to be trickier. I think, for now, I'll just write it, and then make any necessary changes later, during editing.
 

Icarus_Burned

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Many wealthy londoners would have holiday homes in other areas of the UK, particularly rural north Scotland and its Islands. Plenty snowfall in some parts of the UK to accomodate a behemoth of a snowman.
 

Old Hack

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Also FYI, flat roofs are unpopular with UK council planning departments as they tend to leak.

They're unpopular with me, too. We've lived in our house for nearly twenty one years and the big flat roof which covers the extension built onto our house over 100 years ago has leaked the whole time we've been here. We've replaced it twice, and repaired it countless times. It's ok at the moment but the next time we get a decent snowfall it will leak, I know. I hate that flat roof.

(The flat roof I sat on years back was actually coated in some sort of spray on metallic paint is what it looked like, then topped with tar and gravel. We were all careful to wear flat shoes and not damage the roof.)

That was probably roofing felt. It's a thick fabric covered in a bitumen-type material, with small-grade aggregates stuck into it--like dark coloured sand. Very heavy, odd stuff. It's best not to walk on it at all as it usually covers a layer of marine ply, or something similar, and walking on it will cause damage around the screw heads which hold the ply down.

If you don't have enough snow, you can make the snowman look bigger by making it flat or building around a form etc. Make snowballs with packing peanuts mixed in…

And then you have all sorts of horrors when the snow melts and your house is covered in polystyrene.

In the UK we now have packing material made from a starchy material which degrades pretty quickly, and is soluble in water. They're fun to play with. But not good for wildlife, who eat both the starchy packaging and the polystyrene kind and slowly die from malnutrition as a result.
 

Richard White

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I hate packing peanuts, but our cats love them ... and then I get to hate them again as I keep finding packing peanuts all over the house for months afterward.

*grrrr*
 

JDlugosz

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Packing peanut?

As a UK person not heard that one before. Is that what I'd call polystyrene packing? Or foam packing? The bits of shaped polystyrene foam that are in boxes around items?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_peanut

I normally see them like the first photo on that page: pure white. Hmm, that page explains the colors, too: green is recycled and pink is antistatic.

But using them inside a snowball, colored ones would be just fine. You put pure snow around the filler-filled ball as the last inch or so.

They weren’t common back when I was making snowballs, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be useful. I would also consider the large foam inserts in appliance boxes for building an armature. If I built a snowman today, I would use a large pipe as a core, and fill it with liquid nitrogen. That way the snowman would last past 10AM.
 

Orianna2000

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Oh, gosh. At first, I was thinking, "Who on earth would think of building an armature for a snowman??? That's crazy!" And then it hit me. My character would totally do that! It would annoy the crap out of his friends, but it's exactly the sort of idea he would come up with to support the weight of the snow. I think he might even come up with the liquid nitrogen idea.

I'm experiencing a vague feeling of horror and awe.
 

Bolero

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:D Sounds like you're most of the way sorted.
I'd just nipped online fast to suggest flying a kite in a London park - has engineering - wind direction, length of string for launching, direction to run and also team work and argument. No idea if the central London parks frown on kite flying, but was thinking of the hillier places outside the centre, most of which are surrounded by very exclusive neighbourhoods. Wimbledon Common in the south, in the north Primrose Hill, Alexandria Park, Highgate area at the top above Muswell Hill and Alexandria Park, Hampstead Heath.

Liquid Nitrogen - fun as a suggestion - practicality not so sure. I've worked with liquid nitrogen - need to be reasonably careful handling it and it is stored in dewars. If you were to fill an uninsulated tube with liquid nitrogen, it would all boil off - and you'd be in the middle of a cold fog as in covered in mist. That is assuming you got it into the tube safely. Will boil vigorously. The dewars are heavy. Also not sure if you could get a delivery to a private house. You'd need to research liquid nitrogen deliveries in the UK. There are quite a lot of safety issues in the delivery and storage.

If you wanted a cold core, maybe buying ice from an off licence and filling the core with that.
 

Quentin Nokov

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I know the story is set in London and this may be completely unhelpful but I will throw my two cents in anyway; in 2014, Buffalo, NY got six feet, four inches of lake effect snow dumped on them, with an addition 1.5-2 feet following in subsequent days. The event known as the Snowpocalypse or the Snowmaggedon caused a lot of structural damage. Story Link Roofs started to buckle under the six-eight feet of snow and that was evenly distributed across the roof. Another Link

Because the Buffalo area is so snowy, building codes require homes and businesses to be able to handle up to 50 pounds per square foot on their roofs, which would be about as heavy as a slab of concrete 4 inches thick, according to Mark Bajorek, a structural engineer.


Building codes are surely different in London, but I thought I'd share the links with you for what it's worth. Obviously London doesn't get Lake Effect snow, but five-to-six feet of wet snow to start causing problems for flat roofs and mobile homes in Buffalo. Don't know if it's information you can work with or other math savvy people can work with, but I figured it might help to calculate weight etc. Basically flat roofs are the worst and wet snow is definitely worst. I think I read somewhere that it was equivalent to 100 lbs per square foot across the roofs when it should have only been 50.
 
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JDlugosz

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Oh, gosh. At first, I was thinking, "Who on earth would think of building an armature for a snowman??? That's crazy!" And then it hit me. My character would totally do that! It would annoy the crap out of his friends, but it's exactly the sort of idea he would come up with to support the weight of the snow. I think he might even come up with the liquid nitrogen idea.

I'm experiencing a vague feeling of horror and awe.

Once you have access to liquid nitrogen (it’s cheaper than milk!), you find uses for it.

Anyone with sculpting experience would use snow in the same manner as clay or wax, and might make a more elaborate statue than just three balls. E.g. have arms. That needs a real armature. [ha ha]. But the pipe in the middle, like a big can, I could not think of a better word. Basically, find some 6″ metal ducting and stand it up vertically, and build the snow around it. Take scrap romex (stripped), scrap lengths of copper tubing, etc. and wrap it around the pipe fanning out the wires in a bush, to cool the snow ball’s full diameter.

That not only gives room for the internal cooling (my need in Texas) but reduces the snow bulk.

Use a loose-fitting block of foam as a cork, and cover with a hat on top. A cheap souvenir sombrero from a border trip is practical as well.
 

JDlugosz

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If you want an alternative to liquid nitrogen that’s know to work, use dry ice. I've seen pellets stabilize themselves as water freezes around them, and it stops producing fog.
OTOH, in terms of volume it doesn’t provide any more cooling capacity than normal ice. It just gives a lower equilibrium temperature.

With boiling liquid nitrogen, the fog only forms if there is humidity in the air. I expect the ice around the pipe to be insulating, and it will warm only at the rate of heat loss through the ice. I recall a class problem concerning how warm it can get inside an igloo without melting the inner wall, but I don’t know if the numbers were real. Ice forming on radiator pipes reduces the efficiency of its ability to cool, so ice does in fact have some insulating power.
 

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Your snowman will be just over one meter high, assuming each ball is half the diameter of the one below. You can vary this with snow density, depth of snow on the roof, angle of the roof (flat roofs hold more) etc.

Jake looked at roof, glistening white, and asked "how big a snowman can we make?"

Rupert looked at the snow, tested the density with a small snowball, calculated the roof area and depth and looked at his friend "It'll only be about a meter tall, maybe a little more, but we'll need all the snow here."

What detail do you really need for your story?

Jeff
 

waylander

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Neither dry ice nor liquid nitrogen are readily available to anyone in the UK outside of an industrial or research institution.
 

Bolero

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Neither dry ice nor liquid nitrogen are readily available to anyone in the UK outside of an industrial or research institution.

Thank you. Yes.
And there will be questions asked if you take some out of work.

I would also highlight one of the safety problems with liquid nitrogen - you move it in a large dewar - mine was knee high and rounded. It had a loose lid on it and as the liquid nitrogen boiled off gently, the lid sometimes rattled. One of the safety issues was the lid freezing onto the dewar. If that happened (never did to me) then the liquid turning into gas inside the dewar would not be able to escape. If you can't quickly de-ice the lid and get it loose again, what you have is a time bomb.
Also be aware that as you are pouring the stuff, if you manage to tip it over your foot and it fills your boot - your foot could be frozen inside the boot and be badly damaged.
I handled liquid nitrogen safely for years - but I knew what I was doing.
 

Orianna2000

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Yeah, I don't think we'll be using liquid nitrogen. LOL! I mean, the character could, in theory, get hold of some, no questions asked. And it's the sort of thing he would totally do. But he's stuck at home because of the blizzard, so no access to cool stuff from work. And he's making the snowman with a friend and I don't think he'd want to risk hurting her, even accidentally, if something got dropped. (But he might casually mention it, just to freak his friend out.)

Jeff, would the meter-tall snowman require all the snow on the roof, given the square footage I provided in the original post? I don't think I really need to give the size they end up making, other than it's about shoulder-high to the woman. So, maybe, I dunno, 4.5'? I just need the guy to calculate how big the snowman could be, if they used all the snow. (He's never done this sort of thing before, so he's Googling how to build a snowman and gets carried away with the calculations.)

P.S. From what I've seen, the best ratio for a snowman is like, 6/4/2 or 9/6/3, etc. Not sure what that's called in math terms, but each layer isn't double the previous one, I think it's divided into thirds? Or something like that?
 

WeaselFire

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Jeff, would the meter-tall snowman require all the snow on the roof, given the square footage I provided in the original post? I don't think I really need to give the size they end up making, other than it's about shoulder-high to the woman. So, maybe, I dunno, 4.5'? I just need the guy to calculate how big the snowman could be, if they used all the snow. (He's never done this sort of thing before, so he's Googling how to build a snowman and gets carried away with the calculations.)

So make it a meter and a half. I made up the height to begin with and, unless you've got a snowman expert from London who knows the packing density of snowfalls in the United Kingdom, your readers will believe the height anyway. Just don't give the exact dimensions of the roof, depth of the snow, packing density or ratio of ball size and let the story play out.

Unless showing the exact process to get the answer and the exact answer is important to the story. Then have him find this site while Googling:

https://mathcoachblog.com/2013/01/27/building-a-better-snowman/

Jeff
 

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Yeah, I don't think we'll be using liquid nitrogen. LOL! I mean, the character could, in theory, get hold of some, no questions asked. And it's the sort of thing he would totally do. But he's stuck at home because of the blizzard

I'm sorry, Orianna, but I can't get past the idea of a blizzard in London.

You just don't get them.

Even if snow falls in London, very little of it settles and even when it does, it's slushy and doesn't last for long. Google for pictures of snow in London, and you'll see what I mean.

London is such a busy city, with so many people and businesses crammed into such a small space, with so many narrow streets and big buildings to trap the heat that all that generates, that it's just too hot for snow to last long.

Even if there were a snowfall, people can still get about. Even when the roads can't be used the parts of the tube which go underground keep going. Yes, it gets horribly crowded, especially at rush hour, but it does keep going.

I know the area where you're planning to set this story (I used to work in offices nearby) and I can only remember one winter when snow was falling in the West End: I think it was 1986 or 1987. There was relatively heavy snow falling but the Euston Road was completely clear, with traffic unaffected; the pavements had some slush on them but not white, fresh snow. Nothing stopped working.

I realise you're writing fiction so it's possible for the conditions to be right for things to be shut down. But you're going to have to address that carefully otherwise readers who know London are not going to believe it, I'm afraid.
 

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^ what OH said.

If you're writing a Christmas fairytale, go for it. If it's supposed to have a semblance of realism, no blizzards, no snow.
 

Bolero

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Yes. Third that. No blizzards in London. You need to remember that the UK is an island and not a continent and we are a lot warmer than surrounding countries on the map. We are warmer than you'd expect for the latitude. The sea, and the Gulf Stream, make a big difference. If you absolutely have to have a real, white-out blizzard, then you will need to relocate the scene to the Scottish Highlands (or at least the north of England and at higher altitudes - Lake District, North York Moors or summat). Holiday cottages as mentioned earlier in the thread?

Further to previous - and snow doesn't linger in the UK even when we get it. You might get a high pressure system sitting over the UK for a week, cold, bright sunshine, snow on high ground and to the north. And then the weather changes to the SW and the classic "warm, wet, westerly winds in winter" turn up and all the snow melts. So you might get snow for up to a week and its gone again. It just might come back for a second week, or not.
Scotland and northerly high ground the snow will last longer than a week, but we just don't have what I see on TV for the US - as in snow falls, stays all winter, melts in spring.

In fact, it could snow on a Monday or Tuesday, kids get all excited about sledging but the roads are clear enough that they have to go to school, and the snow has melted by the weekend so they never get to sledge. One of the regular seasonal things is the betting shops offering odds on a "white Christmas" - and there is a set definition for "white Christmas".
 
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waylander

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I live in Surrey, SW of London. It snowed twice last winter to give a covering of snow, on neither occasion did it last more than 12hrs
 

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I was in London late one night in around 2009 when it snowed, and it literally felt like a miracle. I'm sure it was only an inch or two at most, but it was utterly magical while it lasted since it was so rare. I was by the London Eye and you couldn't even see the Houses of Parliament across the river it was snowing so hard.
Anyway, point being, I don't think it's happened since then.

This is apparently a video of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5NWf8TLfQ8

However, for me personally, I kind of love it when a movie has snow in central London (see Bridget Jones) no matter how unrealistic it is. So I would likely forgive it in a book too, if I was enjoying it enough.
 
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