Rob,
This is the second season I've had the ice dam backup problems. Last year, the roof was old and needed replacing so we had the roof done and 9 feet of ice/water shield installed. This year, same problem. Roofer came over and we climbed the roof. Shoveled and he showed me the ice problem. There was so much ice in the gutters, it backed up 16 feet and started the water damage again
Anyway....after shoveling, I started dumping Calcium Chloride in the gutter to get that under control. If the ice has nowhere to go, it will backup (so i'm told) After about a day of dumping calcium chloride (supposed to be safer than rock salt) I had some good drains going. Removed the downspouts as they were a bit iced up and I could care less where the water drained to. Then I started spraying the roof with calcium chloride, less quantity than the gutters, and got that under control. So far, it looks like I'm doing alright now but time will tell.
As my roofer said, we've had a bad winter here in northern Worc. cty. Between the ice storm that devastated us for weeks, the constant snow and another smaller ice storm, there was just no place for the stuff to go and no meltdown like we usually get in January. Hopefully, this weekend will melt this junk away so we can start from scratch.
I guess my suggestion would be to use calcium chloride in the gutters to get that stuff out of there. I also chipped away VERY CAREFULLY when the ice started breaking up (almost immediately) to get some of that out of there.
Hope this helps! We're all in this together
Gone Fishin'.....how fast did the gutter melt wires take to melt down? I was thinking about the same thing but thought the length of time might be a bit too much. Thanks!
Linear Mode
