These dams can tear apart your home so limit them by keeping your roof clear of snow.
How to keep ice off your roof.
Remove ice dams using snow rake.
We say they are deadly because sheets of ice start to break loose as the weather gets a little warmer stabbing or crushing anything in its path.
Close up attic bypasses.
4 ways to prevent ice dams on your roof.
These tips can help avoid an insurance claim.
Roof raking is generally best as an ongoing winter long task that you the property owner can perform as a way of keeping the snow off your roof.
Steps on how to de ice your roof.
This has caused ice build ups and insurance claims caused by ice build ups on roofs.
Prevent ice dams with heating cables.
To keep your roof cold follow these three steps.
After a snowfall a cold roof will have a thick blanket of snow.
Because of this it pools up and leaks back into your house causing damage to the roof and attic.
If you see icicles hanging from your roof you most likely have an ice dam.
An ice dam is a condition that develops when the warm air in the home melts the snow that is against your roof leaving a pile of snow above the melt.
Ice weighs more than 57 pounds per cubic foot a load your roof isn t necessarily equipped to handle.
Ice dams are those beautiful but deadly mounds of ice and icicles that you see along the edge of some roofs.
The key to preventing ice dams is simply to keep your attic and roof cold.
And it s not just snow that can spell trouble for your roof.
Know your roofs capacity and how the design of the roof may collect snow and ice.
Pull off snow with a long handled aluminum roof rake while you stand safely on the ground.
A rake with wheels like the one shown here will instantly change the exterior temperature of your roof without damaging shingles.
This prevents the gutters and downspouts from doing their job which is to drain water off the roof and away from the structure.
Take note that the tips we enumerated below are short term solutions.
If you live in a small one story home you can probably use a roof rake to reach most or all of your roof and keep.
If dams are a serious threat to your roof the problem is usually due to poor ventilation.
Now we are ready to go down to the details on how to de ice your roof.
Ice dams happen when ice melts trickles down the roof then freezes again.
The melted snow trickles into your gutters and then refreezes.
For more advice from tom see how to prevent ice dams.
They can give temporary remedies to ice formations but will not permanently stop ice formations when another winter storm comes.
An ice dam is just what it sounds like ice build up that blocks off sections of your roof and prevents snow from sliding off.
Ice dams forming on your roof can damage your home leading to costly repairs.