Posted: 2/7/2004 5:28:25 PM EDT
| I was out shoveling and noticed that my gutters are now inhabited with a massive ice log. How can I clear the ice out? My father in law said to get some ice melter in there to clear it. Would that work? I gotta get this cleared before the roof starts leaking. Any ideas? |
| You could just do what I did. I left our guttering frozen up and it broke completely in half. Now I have half a gutter, with the broken end right over the front porch. When it rains or snow melts off the roof, the water runs out right on your head when you walk under it. [:(] |
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I battled this with a previous house. It's usually the north side, with least sun exposure, where it builds up, but sometimes the south if alot of snow on the roof. A shallow pitched roof makes for more snow buildup too. The only surefire way to battle it is to get out with a snow rake (a long pool cleaning type handle, with an aluminum hoe on the end) and take off the first 10-12 feet of snow right after it's snowed more than a few inches. Taking off just the first few feet won't help, alot of times it'll refreeze and you'll get stains on your ceilings 3 feet into the house instead of down the walls. People will tell you that you need to insulate your attic better, but even with real good insulation, and soffet vents under your eaves, you can still get them. The sun on the warm side of the house will heat up that roof enough to melt snow on the north side, and cause ice dams. Now that you have a log of ice, getting up with a ladder and a hammer and breaking it up is a dangerous, time consuming, but effective way of fixing it. I would lay an ice melter cable in my gutters in the fall, and run it in the winter when the ice built up. This melted a 3" wide channel at the bottom of the gutter that helped if I had to go up with a hammer. Long story short, it may be hammer time for you. Be careful not to break up your shingles in the process, and don't fall off the ladder. For the future, get a snowrake, and everytime it snows more than a few inches, get out there and rake the snow off your roof where you see ice dams now. The melting snow above the gutter is what feeds it. Good luck. And if you buy another house, look for a steep pitched roof, and be aware of which way faces north. |
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Put some ice melter in the gutters, looks like it made a bit of a dent in the ice log. Got one of those roof rakes and pulled a bunch of snow off of the roof. I think that will help some. I think I found the root cause of the problem. The roof vents have been covered with snow decreasing circulation and causing a increase in the average attic temperature. Hence the ice damming. Gonna see if I an reach the vents and clear them tomorrow... BTW thanks for the ideas. |