[Cob] Slightly OT: Info on reduced snow load on roofs?

[Anna Young]

We are doing a fully permitted and coded timber/pole frame house with cob and strawbale infill in BC. We are putting our plans in to our local building inspector with the change he suggested from round horizontal poles to dimensional lumber to avoid having an engineer involved. He has been extremely helpful in our building process so far, but says there is no recognition in the municipal building codes for a reduction in snow load with an increase in roof slope, and as a result is asking that we beef up our roof beams to giant 5-ply 2x12 monsters, as the snow load here is now up to 52psf after a blizzard a few years ago. Most of our roof is on a 45' slope and metal so any snow will not be there for long! However, a reduction makes sense to us, plus there are reduction tables available in a timberframe book written locally. Can anyone suggest engineering books/ websites, mainstream building books/ websites, which would support a reduction in the calculated snow load? (or not, we are trying to keep an open mind here, though the physics is awful convincing).

Many thanks,

Anna