GUILDERLAND — Michael Rosencrans lost thousands of dollars worth of equipment when the building housing his business collapsed on Friday due to the weight of the snow.

Guilderland’s building inspector, Donald Cropsey, told The Enterprise that business-and homeowners alike need to make sure they take steps to reduce the potential for roof collapse this winter.

“Shovel the roof off if the snow is not melting,” said Cropsey. Nearby on Foundry Road, an empty barn collapsed on Tuesday because of the heavy snow on its roof.

It was 6 a.m. on Friday morning when Rosencrans got a call informing him that the walls of the building at the corner of Foundry Road and Western Avenue looked like they were buckling.

“I threw my clothes on and jumped in the car, but, while I was on my way up there I got another call saying the ceiling had collapsed,” Rosencrans told The Enterprise this week. He has worked at Signs Like This for nearly 25 years in the Foundry Road location, and has owned the sign shop for the past four years; he doesn’t own the building, but rents it from Edward Bohl. He makes artfully painted, carved wooden signs.

“I was able to get into the front part of the warehouse, and, when I looked up, all I could see was the sky,” he said. Most of the heavy equipment he used for carving signs was crushed when the ceiling fell in. He lost table saws, band saws, ladders, and paint, among other things.

“It’s all expensive equipment,” said Rosencrans. He said his insurance had just lapsed, so he had no coverage for his equipment at the time of the collapse. He was unsure whether Bohl had insurance on the building. Bohl, who is hospitalized, could not be reached for comment.

“The problem in this business is you don’t get paid right away,” he said. Rosencrans started in the sign-making business years ago, continuing his passion for art and woodworking.

“It’s not something you can go to school for, it is something you learn hands-on. It takes a long time to learn, but you get better and better at it,” he said. He worked with Spence Neil, the former owner of Signs Like This, for about 15 years, and, when Neil was planning to sell the business, Rosencrans bought it in 2007.

“I’ve done work all over the Capital Region, actually I have done work all over the state,” said Rosencrans. Locally, he made signs for Jeff Thomas’s Altamont Corners and Park House Apartments. He recently did some sign work for Cooperstown, near the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“I’ve built up a great clientele, and I would like to stay in Guilderland if I could. I’m not giving up,” he said of his business. He was able to salvage one of his newest, most expensive pieces of equipment, a router. The router is used to carve and engrave the lettering on signs.

“I could see a piece of the router poking up when they were pulling the ceiling away,” said Rosencrans. The crew that responded to the scene, which included the Guilderland Police Department, the Guilderland Fire Department, the Guilderland Water Department, and the town’s building inspector, helped Rosencrans get the router out of the rubble without causing further damage to the equipment.

“They could have just demolished everything, but they listened to my concerns and were careful to get the router out safely,” he said.

Cropsey said the collapse was definitely due to the weight of all the recent snow that had accumulated on the roof of the building. However, he said, demolition crews had been on the site since Friday, and determined that the building, with a wood frame, had been structurally unsound to begin with.

“We are just waiting for a few more pieces of information before we issue a demolition permit for everything that is left standing,” said Cropsey. He explained that business owners are not required to have any type of building inspection, other than a fire inspection, and the building department is only called in when an official complaint is made.

There were no complaints made about the Signs Like This building, although Rosencrans said it leaked constantly.

Rosencrans said he doesn’t plan on giving up his business.

“I’m not a quitter,” he said. He is trying to find another warehouse to work from.

“I don’t even know how to go about this. Every day that I am out of work, I’m losing business,” said Rosencrans. He said he wants to stay in Guilderland, because he simply loves the area.

“I am going to miss my customers if they decide to go somewhere else,” he concluded. “But, right now, I need to start from scratch.”