This winter was harsh. More snow more quickly than we’ve experienced in quite some time. At the beginning of the season, I didn’t know such a thing as an “ice dam” even existed… now I’m intimately familiar with the concept.
Apparently, when snow accumulates on your roof, it can melt a little, trickle down to the edge of the roofline (independent of having gutters) and then refreeze… ultimately forming a significant bed of ice and icicles. While icicles are pretty, they actually can be harbingers of something pretty damaging to a house. As this layer of ice grows, it begins to impede the flow of melted snow down the roof. When the melted snow runs into this dam of ice, it then has nowhere to go but back up the roofline… under the shingles.
But where do “under the singles” lead? Into the house!
Hence, the problem with ice dams.
In case you didn’t figure it out already, we had a serious problem this year. So much so that we had four different locations in our house where water came in and did damage. (James says it’s really three leaks where one leak damaged places on both the upstairs and downstairs. I count it as four since there are four rooms that had water damage.) When the first place happened, I didn’t know what was going on. It was a Friday, so I was home with Joshua. I heard the sound of dripping water. I went to the kitchen and discovered that the seal above our sliding door to the deck had two pretty steady drips. I called James at work and left him a message: “Hi honey. Just thought I’d let you know that our house is leaking…” I didn’t think we could really do much about it, so I didn’t bother to call his cell phone to alert him with much alarm. (Apparently a house leaking is somewhat on par with broken bones and bleeding – a cell phone call should be placed without hesitation.)
When he finally got the message later that afternoon, he came home and started his war against the elements, defending our house. James attacked the ice with a hammer, hot water (hooking up a hose and gutter-cleaner to our inside hot water tap), rock salt… He has a healthy respect of roofs and is not willing to risk his neck climbing on a roof – especially one covered in snow and ice. I am fully supportive of that. So, James fought the battle from the ground (or deck as the case may be).
Over the course of the next two weeks, three more locations in the house sprung a leak – bubbling wallpaper and drywall, as well as staining the ceilings. Also over the course of those weeks, James innovated new designs as he “fought the dragons to defend the castle.” We got one of those long cords that are supposed to get hot (designed to prevent this from happening, who knew!). James devised a few devices to get this cord up onto the roof to melt the key places. James also created his own roof rake – we have a pretty high roofline, so James fashioned his own ”rake” out of copper pipes (not to mention most places sold out of roof rakes early on this winger). We learned about calcium chloride, a far more effective though more expensive ice melter than plain old rock salt.
James worked hard every night after he got home from work until it was just too cold or he got too tired. He worked hard every weekend day, fighting the ice. Trying to break it up, melt it, and get it off our roof. He fought the good fight. He made progress with it – gradually each leak that reared its head would stop after James attacked its root ice dam. But it took a toll on James. It was hard work, and it wasn’t seeming to abate. When the fourth leak started, it was hard not to feel utter defeat. We realized at that point that we had to call “the guy.”
Yup, we called in professionals to come clear off our whole roof and break up what was remaining of the ice dams. Fortunately, we were able to find someone that would come that very weekend. James had felt that he had put some serious dents in the ice dams, so as we waited the days between the call and their arrival, James waffled – “Do we really need them to come? We had a warm-ish day and surely the ice is under control now….” I advocated that we still get the roof cleared. It would give James a break from his backbreaking work, it would remove the threat of future leaks happening, and it would just bring peace of mind, if nothing else.
They came and made quick work of the process. Both James and I were amazed that these guys just climbed on the roof without ropes and without special shoes (other than regular work boots). They shoveled and hacked at the ice. It was really a quite scary sound to be in the house and hear the thundrous boom of snow being sluffed off the roof. Huge sheets of ice were hurled off, one broke the railing on the stairs to the back deck (which apparently needed replacing anyway, but still!) In the end, both James and I were relieved to have our roof clear of the threat. And, as you can see, despite all of James’ work, there had still been a significant ice presence on our roof.
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- James with a chunk of ice from the roof
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- James holding a chunk of ice from the roof
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- The deck had been shoveled clean before the roof was cleared… now it’s full of heavy snow and ice again!
Needless to say, we will be having those little heater thingies installed on our roof before next winter. We will also be proactive about raking the snow off our roof for years to come. Those damn ice dams won’t catch us again if we can help it!
