Everything You Need To Know About Roof Ice Dams

The winter season can prove to be a real challenge for your home exteriors. When the melting snow on your house’s roof clashes with the freezing temperatures on the outside, you can experience a severe problem which is known as a roof ice dam. In case you don’t know, an ice dam can inflict major damage to your home’s roof as well as the exteriors, making it a huge safety risk.

Therefore, in this comprehensive guide, we'll be discussing all there is to know about ice dams so that you can take proper precautions beforehand and prevent the same from happening.

The Method In Which Ice Dams Are Formed

According to professional gutter repairs in Melbourne, when a ridge of ice forms on your roof's edge, an ice dam is formed. When the snow melts during the daytime, the melted water gets drained nowhere and ultimately gets accumulated on the rooftop.

Thus, ice dams are mainly caused by the re-freezing of the melted snow on the rooftop, especially where there is little to no insulation underneath the roof. And when such a situation is combined with your non-working roof gutters, your entire house roof will be on the verge of a breakdown.

Sometimes, the ice that is formed can also expand under your roof shingles.

Methods To Enjoy Short Term Relief

In case you already have ice dams formed on top of your roof, you’ll then need to melt and break the ice so that you can allow the moisture & snow to drain out of your roof via the gutters. To do that, you have to use a blunt object to break up small sections of the ice and then remove it from the roof’s edge.

The aforementioned task is indeed dangerous and therefore needs to be done properly so that you don't inflict additional damage to the roof of your home. In case you're not accustomed to breaking up roof ice dams, you can instead use a calcium chloride-infused ice melting compound for ice melting needs.

Once the ice is melted away, you can then clean your gutters from any additional ice and debris.

How Can You Prevent Ice Dams?

Even though getting rid of ice dams is easy, as can be seen, mentioned in this guide, but it does irreplaceable damage to your house's roof. Therefore, the best way to deal with ice dams is to prevent them from the get-go.

There are multiple ways through which you can avoid ice dams and the following are some of the primary procedures that you can follow:

Good Attic Ventilation

If you have a home that has good attic ventilation, then you'll generally not experience the formation of ice dams. When the cold air from the outside circulates throughout your attic, the space below the rooftop will not be warm. Thus, there's no chance of snow getting melted and the formation of ice dams.

Contrary to popular beliefs, having a cold attic means no ice dams while a warm attic means that homeowners should be aware.

Good Attic Insulation

One of the other methods that can be utilised to reduce or prevent the formation of ice dams is proper attic insulation. Proper insulation means that the warm air from the interiors of your home will not be able to affect the snow that's accumulated on the exterior of your rooftop. Thus, there will be no formation of an ice dam.

Use Of Electric Heat Cables

If the above-mentioned procedures aren’t practical for you, then you can proceed to install electric heat cables on your roof. The heat from the cables will avoid any accumulation of snow on the roof and thus no ice dams.