Ice dams be gone!!

Heavy snows and prolonged cold are the start of roof ice dams.   Ice dams are a huge risk to life and property.  Those huge icicles may look pretty, but they pose a hazard to anything or anyone near them.  The problem doesn’t just stay on the outside either, water stains, falling ceilings and rotten framing can also be caused by ice dams.  

So, what’s going on?  As snow melts, the water heads towards the gutter.  When the water hits the very cold edge of roof, the eave, it can freeze.  When this happens for hours and days, you can have a real problem as more and more water freezes when it hits that cold edge.  The snow is being melted over the main part of the warm house.  If you are reading this in the middle of winter and you have this problem, there isn’t much you can do.  You should attempt to use a roof rake and get what you can off the roof and gutters.  But if you have a glacier up there, be very careful.  More damage can be done when trying to chip out a big block of ice.  Many times there just isn’t much you can do, other than keep your fingers crossed that the warm melting weather gets here soon.  

What’s next?  Take a picture of the problem areas outside the house when the ice is at its worse.  It makes it much easier to “right size” a design of an ice melt system when we have a better idea of the ice build-up history.  Next, you need to evaluate your insulation in the top of the house.  Many homes have insulated ceiling and a cold “attic” space above.  We need to look for heat sources there.  Maybe it’s a bath vent that isn’t insulated, or the insulation was removed in an area for electrical work years before.  Once insulation has been tried, then we can look for outside solutions.   There are many options on the market that try to solve ice dam issues.  Home centers have inexpensive heated cables that can be zig-zagged on the roof and plugged into an outlet.  Unfortunately, they have drawbacks and don’t always work the best.  If you need to rake off roof snow, these are easily displaced.  Plus you need to remember to turn on and off and on and off and on and off, you get the idea.  Just don't forget to turn on, once a glacier forms around cheap cables, they seldom can melt anything that isn't touching them.  If you keep on all the time, it's a needless use of energy and their life cycle will be shortened.

THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY!

There is a better way: A professionally designed ice melt system using a 230V, self-regulating heat cable, run by a solid state automatic controller that senses when to turn the system on and off.   Self-regulating heat cables can heat gutters, downspouts, eave edges and valleys.  For more information, visit www.edgemeltsystems.com 

We service Bylin Ice Melt Systems installed by Jeff Tallon Enterprises in Rochester, NY area.