Ice Dams

[Tinker]

I just received a note from Sal.  He told me he had had some trouble with ice dams on his roof this past winter.  His roof rain gutters are evidently now lying comfortable of his lawn as the result.  As i was sending off a reply, it dawned on me that there are probably other FOG'ers who have suffered the same problem at various times.  This past winter had been especially difficult for much of the North East as nearly every heavy snow storm ended up as rain.  I, myself, had n trouble with ce dams on my rof, but be end of season, my truck needed a face--- er--- ah--- butt lift.  A couple of ice banks along driveways had jumped out behind me and did a little redesigning of the back end.  A trip to the beauty parlor and a couple of k's and it is fine now.

Back t the subject at hand.

A good friend of mine has a great method for breaking up those ice dams on roofs.
His mom, when she was alive used to tell me he was very lazy and could figure out the easiest way to do almost anything, especially if the anything required a lot of effort.

He lives in a two story house with rocks, shrubs and other obstructions preventing comfortable ladder usage.

His method:
He gathers up a batch of his old socks and fills them with Ice Melt (calcium chloride would work, but is more corrosive to gutters and probably foundation plantings >>> I don’t have gutters on my house)
He ties a long piece of twine to the top of each sock(lose wound garden twine is best as it has a fairly large cross section and can absorb a lot of water)
He then walks around his house and periodically, tosses a sock up on the roof, and just sits back to continue with his life, knowing he will have no ice dams this year.
When i go in his driveway to plow his driveway, with all of the icy strings hanging down around the house, it would appear he is tying his house down to protect from high velocity winter winds.

He has been doing this for years. I tell him he should patent the method ,but he does not have enough old socks to keep himself ahead of the patent jumpers  [popcorn]
Tinker

 

[Kev]

The cold sounds so complicated [blink]

 

[bkharman]

I like the thought there, just not sure if I could fling those up three stories. We had a new roof put up a few years ago and they used that membrane backing a good 4-5' up from the gutter edge. Seems to have done the trick so far. This year was a heavy ice and snow year for a lot of us so thanks for the tip!

It is also timely as this is what I woke up to this morning.

 

[chrisrosenb]

He needs to fix what is causing the ice dams.

He is getting to much heat buildup in the attic.

He needs more insulation & more ventilation.

 

[Theshipstore]

JD  funny you piped in, added more insulation in the attic and more ventilation also..
will see what the results are in the next winter adventures

Sal

 

[grbmds]

The insulation and ventilation may help but my house has plenty and has one problem area on the north side that gets sun during parts of the day then freezes. Bad of the roof in that area and there are too many sq ftt of snow for the gutters. I was advised against the salt idea for regular use on the roof. It appears that it contributes to deterioration of thshingles and roof in general. I suppose it depends on the composition of the ice melt. I know it really causes a lot of wear and tear on my asphalt driveway and concrete slab in the garage if we have a winter with a lot of ice that forces me to use it on my driveway. I usualy dont . This winter wasan exception in Illinois and both the driveway and slab showed noticeable deterioration from the greater than usual use of ice melt. I would question salt on the roof since shingles are asphalt based also.

 

[Tinker]

I had questioned my friend about the salt on his roof causing deterioration.
He does not think there is a problem.  Time will tell on that issue.

Some of those synthetic ice melters are worse than the real salt.
They keep melting at lower temperatures and in my opinion are far more corrosive than salt, if that is possible.
I have never had rust problems on my trucks until about five or six years ago when the frame on a twelve year old truck rotted and when we took the dump frame off, the truck broke in two.  My present truck, 13 years old, has a problem just beginning to show up with rot on the cross members.  I have never had these problems before (Heck, I'm only 39  : so have not been around for long).  My first truck was a 34 Model B Ford 1 ton with dump body.  That was already 21 years old when I got it.  When I got rid of it a couple of years later, there was not a sign of rust anywhere on it.  Of course in those days, they hardly used any salt, they just packed the snow down.  Not so great for drivers, but us kids loved the sledding.  Sometimes if we were lucky, we got to skate on the roads after an ice storm before sand arrived.  The towns sanded with only sand and did it by hand.

Today, it is liquid that turns the snow and ice to slop.  That is what's doing the damage.  The chemicals are splashed onto every part of cars and trucks.  In the case of my friend using the socks, ice melt and string, the chemical is not spreading over the entire roof.  It just seems to melt around the container, the strings and eventually will slide thru the ice dam.  The water created just flows along the string and keeps a path (tunnel) thru the ice dam.  I have no intention to climb up there to see if there is chemical damage.  I do know that the times I have seen the strings hanging down, there is still plenty of snow on the roof.  By the time those socks slide down to the ice dam and slide thru the open channels, the snow has been finished with any further harassment.

I would not be surprised if his gutters start showing the efects within a couple of years, except he has only resorted to that action twice within the past ten, or so years..
Tinker

 

[Colonel Panic]

The cold sounds so complicated [blink]

I agree 100%. I don't live as far south as you but the only ice we worry about in Georgia is what goes in our tea.  [big grin] That and the occasional citywide traffic jam when people go out when there is a winter storm on the way.  [eek] I was home all warm and toasty.

 

[Stephen B]

[size=11pt]

Yes Kev, this is so academic and complicated from down here!  [big grin]

 

[Theshipstore]

Grbmds  I agree with you , my rear roof line has a northern exposure under trees and oppisite a high school football and baseball field. The late afternoon sun does the melt but the wind thru the open field freezes it up quickly.

This has been an on going issue for years and I now installed Rain Handler Sections on that roof and am hoping for better results this way
I have had great results on my screened room roof with them

Thanks to all for their input on this one

Sal

 

[peter halle]

If the gutters are aluminum, damage is being done.

In business, especially when dealing with buildings, it is rare to be able to do almost snapshot of how one thing influences another for one property.

A condo association I have had association with for 19 years took the steps a few years before I was involved to cover their exterior trim with factory finished aluminum.  As the population has aged, the walkways  to their units rely more and more towards ice melting chemicals versus frequent shoveling in the event of snow or ice.  They have now been on notice about the irreversable noticeable damage to their aluminum trim, and worse to the framing anchors and galvanized fasteners.

Just throwing this out for knowledge.

Peter

 

[grbmds]

Grbmds  I agree with you , my rear roof line has a northern exposure under trees and oppisite a high school football and baseball field. The late afternoon sun does the melt but the wind thru the open field freezes it up quickly.

This has been an on going issue for years and I now installed Rain Handler Sections on that roof and am hoping for better results this way
I have had great results on my screened room roof with them

Thanks to all for their input on this one

Sal

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but what Rain Handler Sections. I have been looking for a way to rid our house of the problem since we built it about 20 years ago. Most winters it doesn't create a problem, but the last one was the worst problem we had since moving in, causing the ice to back up under the shingles and leak inside when we had the final thaw this spring. When we put a new roof on 5 years ago they allegedly put the rubberized layer up past our skylight (which is about 12' up the roof) compared to about 6' up from the roof edge around the rest of the house. This year it didn't help. I am about to install the electric roof heating wires next year, but am not really in favor of them so anything else to try would be helpful.

 

[Theshipstore]

Grbmds. rainhandlers.com , give them a look, it's a different way of dispersing the rain water off the roof, as I said earlier I have them on a screened room roof and they work well with the rain and melting water from snow quite well.

Give them a look, they work for me.

 

[nclemmons]

I use the heat cables.  About the best solution I have found.

neil

 

[grbmds]

Grbmds. rainhandlers.com , give them a look, it's a different way of dispersing the rain water off the roof, as I said earlier I have them on a screened room roof and they work well with the rain and melting water from snow quite well.

Give them a look, they work for me.

The problem is that we have Gutter Helmet installed on our gutters to keep the leaves out and they work well. I don't think I can have both. Plus, I don't think the movement of water is necessarily the problem. Water does run out into the gutters and down the spouts. In fact this year we didn't even have any icicles which is usually the indication that the ice is backing up. It's strange that no company in our area (Northern Illinois) has a clue what to do. It can't be a unique problem. There must be many out there with even worse problems than I have.

 

[Theshipstore]

Gutter Helmet here offers a version with the heater cable already part of their system, this to prevent ice dams in the gutter which is usually is the start source of ice dams. I threw mine in the garbage 10 years ago because all my gutters ice dam'd real bad every winter after they were installed.
I will admit this winter was a biggie, hopefully the coming winter season will not be as bad. I have never had to remove snow from my roof before this year

 

[nclemmons]

I wonder if the rain handlers would prevent ice dams.  I don't have them but I've seen ice dams through the years and I actually think they might promote them.

I live in chicagoland and we had terrible accumulation on the roof edges, with 82 inches of snow this year.  

As I said in the previous post, I use heat cable and it does a pretty good job. But even with heat tape, if it's really cold, the heat tape fails to melt the channels to funnel the water.  i run the heat cable in the gutters and downspouts.  In key icing areas, i run a cable up on the roof.  There are commercial cables that will last longer than what you can buy at home centers, so give that a consideration.  Some homes actually have plugs wired around the roof for neater installations.

I have seen large snow accumulations that would span the gutter - and start an ice dam even if there is a heat tape in the gutter - if it's fluffy snow, it does not have to fill the gutter - the snow will just bridge it and melting snow from the roof will freeze as it runs from the warmer heated area over any open soffet cooled area, resulting in ice dams.  I would think the rain handler 'louver' would be susceptible to ice dams due to snow accumulation on the edge and bridging the louvers and water runoff accumulating into ice as it hits the cold snow from the warmer roof.

Best bet is sell the house and move to Arizona!

neil

 

[nclemmons]

One other thing you can do - use an aluminum roof rake and keep the bottom couple of feet clear of snow - the sun will melt the snow down to the shingles if you remove the insulating nature of the snow.

We had over 2' of snow on our roof from early December through March this year.

 

[grbmds]

I wonder if the rain handlers would prevent ice dams.  I don't have them but I've seen ice dams through the years and I actually think they might promote them.

I live in chicagoland and we had terrible accumulation on the roof edges, with 82 inches of snow this year.  

As I said in the previous post, I use heat cable and it does a pretty good job. But even with heat tape, if it's really cold, the heat tape fails to melt the channels to funnel the water.  i run the heat cable in the gutters and downspouts.  In key icing areas, i run a cable up on the roof.  There are commercial cables that will last longer than what you can buy at home centers, so give that a consideration.  Some homes actually have plugs wired around the roof for neater installations.

I have seen large snow accumulations that would span the gutter - and start an ice dam even if there is a heat tape in the gutter - if it's fluffy snow, it does not have to fill the gutter - the snow will just bridge it and melting snow from the roof will freeze as it runs from the warmer heated area over any open soffet cooled area, resulting in ice dams.  I would think the rain handler 'louver' would be susceptible to ice dams due to snow accumulation on the edge and bridging the louvers and water runoff accumulating into ice as it hits the cold snow from the warmer roof.

Best bet is sell the house and move to Arizona!

neil

Can't use the rain handler with the gutter helmet anyway. The heater tape always has seemed a little risky given it's electricity sitting in water, but I can't have anymore leaks in my house. It's too difficult to fix and repaint the ceilings around the front door. I'm in northern Illinois also. There was about 9 - 12" of ice on the roof all the way up to the skylight which is about 10 - 12' up. We don't have this problem anywhere else on our house. Do you leave the heat tape on the roof all year around? Doesn't the sun dry out the wiring in summer?

 

[tiralie]

I used smart screens gutter protection on my house and it has cut down on the ice and icicles forming on the west side of the house. Any ice and snow that builds up is held out of the eve trough and melts away as soon as the sun hits it.
I originally put the smart screen on to keep leaves and twigs from crappy Norway maples from clogging the drains, but it seems to have improved the ice buildup. It hasn't completely disappeared but as others have noted, insulation and poor ventilation are creating some additional problems.
They are pretty cheap, so might be worth a try.
Tim