BaancBlog

Pardon the obvious title.

After 30 years in the house, the editor has finally been taught about "ice dams". Two of them, in fact, on two roofs.

Initially, you see the seams in the ceiling drywall that you had carefully taped, lovingly hidden with joint compound, and painted with primer and then two coats of Benjmin-Moore, begin to reappear. Then the tape begins to bulge a bit, sort of like an abscess telling you it's time for a root canal. Then, a drop gets through, and a few more. More drops waiting in line to fall get impatient and move down the seam, starting their own abscesses and leaks. Somewhat like the gypsies in Traviata or the brooms in Disney's (OK, Mussorgsky's) Sorcerer's Apprentice.

One gets pots, emptys them every few hours, and prays for Global Warming.

Finally fixed it by getting a lot of the snow off the right places in the roof. In one case, it was by putting about a 4"x8" piece of plywood on the end of a 10' 2x4 and clearing a 6' wide and 4' deep section of snow from the roof over where the suspected ice dam was. From a safe distance, sitting down. The remark is that it isn't just snow. It's thin strata of ice with snow between from the warmer days and colder nights and days of snowfall.

Basically, the editor thinks it was breaking this structure which did the trick, as well as getting most of the snow off the section of roof. Going to bed last night, with pot emptying duties (this gives "potty stop" new meaning) clearly in mind does not make a restful night. By morning, the rooms were not newly wet nor was there any drop to clink into the pots. The "pipeline" from dam to ceiling took about 12 hours to clear. Back to normal.

I guess when they start predicting a second snow storm before the first has melted away, one should clear off most of the snow while it's still easy.