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Snow On The Roof Causes Ice DamsBy Jim Sulski Summary: It's a home owner's worst nightmare. There are inches, if not feet, of snow on the roof, and somehow water is leaking through your attic and into your walls. Jim explains how ice dams form and what to do to avoid them. After days of what amounted to several inches of snowfall, the couple noticed
a staining on several of the upper walls on the second floor of their wood-frame
home. A quick inspection of the attic proved the couple's worst fears: despite it being below freezing, water was working its way through the roof, into the attic and down to the walls below. The source of this water: A pileup of ice and snow on the roof of their house. The couple called a roofing contractor who could offer little help to them: It was too dangerous to send workers to the roof to remove the snow and ice. They would have to wait until warmer weather set it before the problem could be repaired. As a result, the couple armed themselves with buckets and towels for the next couple of weeks to literally mop up the damage. What happened to the couple's home affects many houses, most which have not experienced roofing problems. In fact, the couple had just replaced their roof a couple of years earlier. It really doesn't matter if your house is old or new - just about any homeowner may wrestle with this problem, say home building experts. The major culprit here is what's known as an ice dam, which starts to form when a layer of snow - as little as a few inches - on a pitched roof begins to melt despite freezing temperatures. That melted snow usually comes from the higher point of the roof where temperatures are warmer because of heated air that escapes from a home's living space into the attic. That heated air goes through the ceiling into the attic mostly through gaps around chimneys, pipes and wires or via bypasses and chases. That warmed air then warms the underside of the plywood on the roof, which melts the snow on the higher parts of a home's roof. A deep snow on the roof, meanwhile, acts as insulation, which helps contain that warm air in the attic, compounding the problem, When that melted snow runs down the pitched roof and into the cold gutter, it refreezes into a block of ice. As more snows melts, it adds to that ice dam. The ice dam can then back up out of the gutter, high enough to push up roof shingles. That lets water into the attic, where it can ruin insulation, cause wood to rot and work its way down to the living space below. Ice dams are most likely to occur when there is a deep snow, say six to 12 inches and then is followed by a freeze-thaw cycle, although temperatures can remain in the 20-degree range. Another sign of trouble is when a stalactite-like icicles began to hang from the gutters. Ice dams can damage roof shingles and cause gutters to sag and bend. Gutters
can be bent and destroyed and eventually pulled down by the weight of the ice. © by Jim Sulski. All rights reserved. February 23, 2005. NOTE: This column is distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022. This column may not be resold, reprinted, resyndicated or redistributed without written permission from the publisher. © 2005 by Ilyce R. Glink. Distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate. |
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