I came home from our usual Sunday evening dinner to discover that I had water dripping from one of my windows. I suddenly realized that I had ice on my roof that shouldn’t have been there. I spent the better part of that night clearing ice and snow from that side of roof, but as soon as I did, the water was gone and only caused minimal damage.
Here’s some advice for the new homeowners on here and maybe the old too
You can help prevent serious damage to both the roof and inside of your home by minimizing the likelihood that an ice dam will develop, and by removing one as soon as you spot it. Ice dams can form when water from melting snow re-freezes at the edge of your roofline. Without roof snow removal, an ice dam may grow large enough to prevent water from draining off the roof. This water can then back up underneath roof shingles and make its way into your home.
How to Help Prevent an Ice Dam from Forming:
Remove snow from your roof after every storm. To begin with, use a roof rake to clear snow from the edge of your roof upwards of three to four feet immediately after each storm. In addition to helping prevent an ice dam from forming, this will lessen the stress on your home’s roof. The amount of snow and ice your roof can support will depend on a number of factors, including the roof type and the age and condition of the structure. But a good rule to keep in mind is if more than a foot of heavy, wet snow and ice has accumulated on your roof, you should have it removed.
Clear downspouts. An easy way to help snow and ice drain off your roof is to make sure the area around your downspouts is clear. This can help prevent standing water from collecting near the gutter downspout.
How Do You Know if You Have an Ice Dam?
Look carefully at the icicles around the exterior of your house. If they are confined to the gutters and there is no water trapped behind them, then an ice dam has likely not formed. Nonetheless, icicles can pose a danger to people when they fall off, so try to safely knock them down while standing on the ground, making sure not to stand directly beneath them. If you cannot safely reach them from the ground, consider hiring a contractor to help.
Check for water stains or moisture in the attic or around the tops of exterior walls on the top floor of your house. Stains and moisture may indicate that an ice dam has formed and water has penetrated the roof membrane.
How to Remove an Ice Dam:
Melt the ice dam. Fill a nylon stocking with calcium chloride ice melt, and place it vertically across the ice dam so that it melts a channel through the dam. If you try this, make sure you can safely position the ice melt on your roof, and make sure to use calcium chloride, not rock salt. Rock salt will damage your roof. Also, be aware that shrubbery and plants near the gutters or downspouts may be damaged.
Get professional help. If you cannot safely reach the roof, avoid using a ladder in snowy and icy conditions. Consider hiring a contractor to remove the ice dam.
Long-term Tips for Preventing Ice Dams:
Insulate your attic. Make sure your attic is well insulated to help prevent the melting-and-freezing cycle that causes ice dams to form. Check and seal places where warm air could leak from your house to the attic, including vent pipes, exhaust fans, chimneys, attic hatches and light fixtures.
Install a water-repellent membrane. When replacing a roof, make sure to install a water repellent membrane underneath the shingles. This acts as an extra barrier that helps prevent water from seeping inside the building.
I started getting worried about the little bit of ice forming on my roof, but then I looked at the other houses in the neighborhood. (North Buffalo) All I can say is holy shit. Some people have sections of ice that are 2 feet thick on the edge of their roof. :tdown:
I think the biggest point to make is that if you do decide to melt the ice, just make sure that you try to open up a spot for the water to flow to. Too many times, people throw something down, but fail to open a channel first. They accelarate the melting and it pools up until gravity does it’s thing and reaches the bottom of the ice and finally lets loose.
Based on this image, if those tablets are placed where they show it, it seems to me that it will just pool up more because it’s still blocked by the ice below it:
I am still a fairly new homeowner (3 years), but haven’t experienced a winter like this in my home. I can now see the problem areas and want to ensure I don’t go through it again. Best solution would be to have the whole upstairs spray foamed and close the crawl spaces off entirely to the outside, but I’m not sure I’ll get that money back when I sell.
@LZ1 I gotcha. I guess the more I think about, that tablet will use gravity and dissolve straight down the roof. Throw a few up there and it should open a few channels.
So I thought the same thing at first and was like hmm that seems stupid after reading reviews of other people who didn’t follow directions and just put them on top of the ice it makes sense.
My roof is so high that I can’t reach it with a roof shovel. And since I’m still waiting on getting my attic insulated I have a few areas where there are formations like this.
I put on a new roof last year and added a lot more venting. Really impressed with the job a properly breathing attic is doing with all the snow this year. I walked around and I have zero ice on my roof. The vents are doing their jobs allowing cool air to enter at the eves and vent the heat out the ridge, meaning my roof never gets warm enough to melt the snow and create ice dams. My neighbor across the street has ice that has to be 6" thick at the edges of his roof.
We’re getting crushed with ice damming customers now, and only project it is going to get worse before it gets better. We just put this bad boy to work in the field. I tell anyone who asks me about solving the problem. Ice damming is an addition problem. Ice + Heat = Water. Remove one of the two from the equation and the problem is solved. Bobby, I’m hearing some of our customer’s insurance companies are paying for part or all the costs of ice dam removal, based on what their carrier / policy allows.
I have a few clients I’m working with right now that have severe damage from ice. Yes, the company might pay for it because technically it can help reduce the damage and the claim from being much higher.
I insure a 1.8 Mil house locally that the owners were in Florida for the past month and just came home to the damage of a roof leak and a destroyed kitchen.
Also, to anyone who might have some damage, no matter how small…contact your carrier ASAP to notify them. You don’t necessarily have to put the claim through, but it’s better to let them know there’s something and it could get worse. They may want to handle it differently than what you might do and you don’t want to cost yourself the opportunity to file the claim.
Yeah I spent 3 days clearing my gutters last week Sunday to Tuesday. Brand new roof too. Still had water coming in on two windows. My roofer has been notified. I don’t have any overhangs so that’s part of the problem. Asshole said there’s still a way to vent it. I was like well thanks for not doing it! Says he’ll come fix it in spring. My gutters are clear now though.
I’m always interested to see if these people have ice and water shield on their roof and how high up it goes. My coworker today was telling me that he went up 8 ft. on his roof when he had it redone…
This is the system I went with. The front of my house has an overhang with normal eve vents but the entire back has no overhang at all and had nowhere to let air in. We installed that edge vent from one edge to the other.
