Icicles hanging on the roof of your home might look attractive but they speak trouble. The same conditions often contribute to ice dams. Dams can tear off gutters, slack shingles, and cause water to back up and pour into your house. When that happens, the effects can be very unlikable. The paint on the wall can peel off, floors scratched, and so on. Not to mention the soggy attic insulation, which loses R-value and becomes a mold and mildew trap.
If your property is prone to ice dams then getting ahead of them and thinking about preventive measures is the best measure. The long term solution for your ice dams is to get the ventilation or isolation issues inside your roof repaired. If you are facing an ice dam roof and searching solution for the problem we suggest you read further articles. Here we have mentioned a few tips and tricks which might help to clear away the ice dam on the roof of your property.
1. Blow Cold Air via Attic
Blowing cold air causes the snow to liquefy on the ceiling and glide smoothly under shingles and near the drain. One smart, non-harmful way to ice dam removal is to directly point fans to your roof where the problem begins. Snow will not melt in the first place by refreshing the underside of the roof and preventing ice dams from forming.
2. Calcium Chloride Deicer
The serious solution is deicing your roof after it has formed is a very efficacious way to melt snow dams. So, if you use calcium chloride to deice your roof, make sure to protect the flora and fauna below the drains, as they will die from over-exposure to the chemicals. Fill nylon storage (Weird? Sure, but they are still very effective) with calcium chloride to effectively deice your roof, and throw the storage onto the roof so that it lies perpendicular to the edge of your roof.
3. Spray Warm Water
Spraying warm water is just a workaround for a stopgap, but it can yield immediate results. Get some hot or warm water and pour it into some kind of spraying device (large spray bottle, canister with lawn fertilizer, etc.). Then sprinkle the water along the ice to breakdown. But unless your region is struck by a warming trend, warm water will eventually turn cold and freeze — so use this in combination with the other methods.
4. Heated Cables
Heated cables are a perfect method for clearing ice dams, as they effectively keep them from forming frost. If you are in sort of time and expense to get your roof repaired, the other measures are heated wiring. Place them vertically on your roof in a zigzag pattern before the snow falls and watch as they melt snow until freezing and ice dams are formed. Heated cables are conveniently attached with clips to the roof, the only trick is to have them on before snowfalls.
5. Helmet Heat (Long term solution)
Helmet Heat is a self-adjustable heating system that melts ice before it can build on your roof, gutters. This kind of method will be wired across your gutters and drain. Before it strikes the eaves of your home, the snow melts with it and water runs down your drain. Damaging the buildup of snow and ice is averted.
6. Cheap Away/ Rake it
For this job, an ice pick or awl is best, though a crowbar or hatchet can work as well. Standing on a stable ladder or another sturdy item, reach the gutter and chip off at the ice buildup, start at the gutter and work back up the roof (be careful not to damage the roof itself). You don’t have to clear all the ice-just enough to create a path to flow through your gutters for the melting snow and ice.
7. Break Existing ice dam into small chunk
It can be risky to crack an ice dam and, if need a professional’s help do not hesitate to get one. The breaking of an ice dam is generally done in conjunction with some fashion melting the ice, such as using calcium chloride socks as mentioned above or steaming the roof (below). First, a careful homeowner or professional hire should clear the dam’s roof of excessive snow and melt drainage channels. Then, as the ice begins to melt, channel edges can be carefully chipped off with a mallet to widen them and hasten drainage.
8. Call a Professional
Not certain whether you can perform ice dam remedies on your own? If yes, you can always call a professional or agent who is an expert in the field. Usually, all the measures of getting rid of ice dams are hectic and take a bit of time-consuming in the winter weather due to frigid temperatures. If this winter you’re just not up to that difficult situation, do not mind calling a roofing company for the rescue. They will for sure help you to get rid of any potential ice dams for you and put in place a solution to keep them away until you have time to permanently fix the roof.
While these ideas are all excellent temporary fixes, it’s better to keep in mind that having your roof repaired is the only way to prevent the ice dams in their tracks. Whether you’re lacking insulation or your roof isn’t properly ventilated, you’ll need to call a professional at some point to get your roof fixed permanently so ice dams don’t start to form.
