Rain Gutters Ice Dams

Heat loss from a house snow cover and outside temperatures interact to form ice dams.

Rain gutters ice dams.

This pool of water can leak into your home and cause damage to walls ceilings insulation and other areas. An accumulation of ice can also damage your gutters. This in turn adds to the ice sickle or ice dam and will cause it to grow. Water that freezes then creates a dam or dripping point that unfrozen water will naturally follow.

Even if you have good insulation your roof gets a little warmer than the surrounding environment. When it forms the water then backs up behind the ice dam and creates a pool of water. Ice dams can form in your gutters when water is unable to leave the system due to blockages and other debris. While your gutters are designed to send water from your roof to the ground the ice dam keeps the water at the edge of the roof leading to leaks and rot.

If necessary use a long handled garden rake or hoe to push it into position. Gutters just allow the ice to crawl a bit further past the edge of your roof overhang. Ice dams can form in your gutters when rainwater or other precipitation backs up in your gutters and freezes due to cold temperatures in the winter late fall or early spring. For ice dams to form there must be snow on the roof and at the same time higher portions of the roof s outside surface must be above 32 degrees f freezing while lower surfaces are below 32f.

Nonuniform roof surface temperatures lead to ice dams. Lay the hose onto the roof so it crosses the ice dam and overhangs the gutter. In essence they extend the area of your overhang. Why do ice dams form.

The calcium chloride will eventually melt through the snow and ice and create a channel for water to flow down into the gutters or off the roof. Ask this old house general contractor tom silva explains the best ways to keep your roof and gutters free from those dreaded ice dams. With a lack of insulation or heat source water will build around or on gutter guards even if the gutter system did not experience problems in the past. In my experience gutters can result in larger thicker ice dams by creating a shelf and more depth to the overhang.

Those ice dams can cause some serious damage to your home. The more feet of overhang on your roof the greater the potential for big ice dams forming. The more feet of overhang on your roof the greater the potential for bigger. This in turn causes the water to sit in the gutters and with the onset of colder temperatures the water will then turn into ice and at that point you are in a world of hurt.