Ice Dam On Roof Gutters

Ask this old house general contractor tom silva explains the best ways to keep your roof and gutters free from those dreaded ice dams.

Ice dam on roof gutters.

Though ice dams can look picturesque with dangling icicles it s actually hard on your home. This in turn adds to the ice sickle or ice dam and will cause it to grow. An ice dam is a mass of ice that gathers along the lower edge of rooflines. And this is where the confusion.

People who don t know the science behind ice dams and people who want to sell you a gutter system that supposedly prevents ice dams from forming. Helmet heat is wired throughout your gutters and downspouts. With it snow melts before it hits the eaves of your roof and water flows down your heated gutters and downspouts. An ice dam is a hump of ice that forms at the edge of a roof under certain wintertime conditions.

Ice dams on gutters result from melting snow over a heated building reaching the eave and freezing. It will put gutters and downspouts at risk too. If necessary use a long handled garden rake or hoe to push it into position. Two types of people will tell you that gutters cause ice dams.

Fill the leg of discarded pair of panty hose with a calcium chloride ice melter. An ice dam can damage both your roof and the inside of your home. Ice dams are a common sight in northern new england winters and home partners has dealt with quite a few. See below for a shopp.

Severe ice dams can weigh many hundreds of pounds compromising the structure of the roof eaves. This myth has lingered like a bad smell and has resulted in many puzzled frustrated homeowners. The notion that gutters cause ice dams to form on your roof is one of them. More critically ice dams can cause meltwater to back up under the shingles where it can flow down and ruin ceiling and wall surfaces.

They occur in climates with cold winter temperatures and regular snowfall. An ice dam is defined as a build up of ice that gathers on the eaves of sloped roofs. Those freezing conditions are transferred to water in your gutter system allowing it to freeze along the edge of gutters as well as in the valley. Helmet heat is a self regulating heating system that melts snow and ice before it can form into damaging mounds weighing down on your roof gutters and downspouts.