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Thanks,

Paul Phillips

Excessive Ice build up at you eves -

This is a telltale sign of an attic that is not properly insulated. Every house gets some ice build up in the winter. It is unavoidable (unless you put heat strip on your roof mentioned later in this letter). Excessive build up, however is avoidable.

What causes ice build up? Your heat is escaping into the acetic area due to lack of insulation. The attic area heats up enough to slightly melt the snow on your roof. The water runs to the edge of the roof called the eve. The eve is exposed and does not have a heated attic under it. Therefore it is the same temperature as outside. When the water hits that part of the roof, it freezes. This process is repeated over and over. Before you know it you have an enormous amount of ice build up on you eves.

The cure is to insulate the attic. There are different options and products for doing this. Those can be found on my website. Insulating the attic will not only stop the ice build up at the eves, it will save you the money it is costing you to heat your attic!

This could be a result of not having an ice barrier on your roof. When the ice builds up on your eves, it blocks your eve’s trough. When the roof heats up enough to melt some snow, the water run off has no place to go and starts to back up under your shingles creating a leak. Today, roofers use a product called Ice shield. It is a solid sticky piece of rolled roofing that is put under you shingles. That way if water backs up, it lays on top of the ice shield - keeping you home dry.

If your roof is not in need of replacing but you don’t have ice shield, then you can try and keep the eves clear for water run off. You can do this a couple of ways. Many of your home improvement stores and lumber yards sell roof rakes. This is usually a solid piece of metal or fiber glass on the end of a telescoping pole. You extend this pole and pull of several feet of snow from the eve end so it is not dammed.

For those of you that don’t want to get out and rake you roof all winter long should try some kind of heat tape. There are many different brands, and styles. But they all work essentially the same. They plug into a 110 outlet and heat up enough to melt the snow at your eves. Some work pretty good while others leave little zig zag marks in a foot of snow because they don’t throw off enough heat. Check around and make sure you ask your supplier if the heat tape your looking at can handle the amount of snow that we have been getting lately. Contact me with any questions you may have!