How To Prevent Ice Dams

After all the recent snowfall, it's a good time to talk about ice dams.  Ice dams are caused by the same thing I've been blogging about for the last several entries; heat loss!  The most obvious sign of heat loss in attics is ice dams - those huge masses of ice that build up at the edges of roofs.  Ice dams occur because heat from the house escapes in to the attic, warms the roof, and causes snow to melt.  When the water gets to the cold overhang at the eave, it freezes.  As the ice builds up, it literally creates a dam.  The trapped water can then leak into the home and cause damage to the roof decking, structural members, insulation, and even stain the ceiling.

   

To prevent ice dams from occurring, you need to stop the heat loss.  The best way to do this is to seal attic bypasses - you can read more about this in two of my recent blogs - Attic Photo Explanations and Insulation Vs. Air Leakage. The other two ways to help prevent ice dams are by having adequate insulation and ventilation.  Insulation will obviously help to prevent heat loss, and proper ventilation will help to keep the roof colder; the colder the roof, the less chance for the snow to melt in the first place.

Older one-and-a-half story houses are especially susceptible to ice dams because there is usually very little access to all of the attic spaces that need attention.  If this is the case, there are still some steps you can take to control the damage caused by ice dams.   The least expensive and most labor-intensive way to prevent ice dams is to remove the snow from the eaves using a roof rake.   It's best to remove the snow right away, when it's light and fluffy.  The longer you wait, the more ice will accumulate.  If you can remove the snow down to the shingles, the sun will usually keep the shingles warm enough to prevent ice from forming at the eaves.



If you're looking for a less labor-intensive method of preventing ice dams, you could install heat cables at the eaves.  These will usually prevent ice dams from forming, but electric heat cables are expensive and use a fair amount of electricity to operate, making them an environmentally UN-friendly solution.   Even manufacturers of heat cables state that they are not the most efficient way to solve ice problems.
The worst way of dealing with ice dams is to get on a ladder and hack away at your ice dams with a hatchet or ice pick.   This is dangerous, and you could cause damage to your roof.  I've seen many roofs with big hatchet marks in the shingles from people chopping too deep.  I don't recommend doing this.
The bottom line?  If you can't stop your ice dams the right way, buy a roof rake.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspections

Reasons To Insulate Your Minnesota Home

With the cold weather officially here, it’s a good time to talk about insulation.  This is such a huge topic that I hardly know where to start!  There are so many different aspects to insulation that this will have to take up several blogs.  Today I’ll talk about why it’s important to have a well-insulated home.


Perhaps the most important reason to have a well-insulated home is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  While a recent survey conducted by Owens-Corning revealed that most Americans believe transportation and industry to be the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, in truth the largest contributor is buildings!  Buildings use 40% of our energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.  The number is even higher in Minnesota - 60 to 80 percent! The most cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to better insulate buildings.  Yes, this is even better than driving a hybrid vehicle, but it's certainly not as hip.


The most obvious reason to better insulate your home is to reduce your heating and cooling bills – especially here in Minnesota.  Adding insulation to attic spaces is often a project that even unskilled homeowners can tackle, and it doesn’t cost a lot of money. Homeowners will typically see a payback in five to ten years. Adding insulation to poorly insulated walls is also a good thing to do and will surely help to save on heating and cooling costs, but this not as cost effective as adding insulation to an open attic area, as this will often require a professional to blow insulation in to the walls.


Arguably the most important reason to better insulate your home is to make it more comfortable. Even if a thermostat says it’s 70 degrees inside the home, poorly insulated walls will make a room feel much colder as the heat from your body radiates out to the relatively cold walls. In older houses with uneven heat, you may even have parts of the house that never warm up enough. I can tell you from experience that insulation makes an incredible difference in the comfort of a home. I live in a one-and-a-half story home with a finished upper level that used to be so cold in the winter that I couldn’t even use it. After re-insulating the upper level last year, I no longer need to heat the upper level! Enough heat rises up from the rest of the house to keep the upper floor so warm that I can shut off all the heat registers and it’s still comfortable.


There are many more reasons to properly insulate your home, but I’ll just mention one more that you’re surely aware of if you live in Minnesota; ice dams. While ice dams are a large subject on their own, suffice to say that lack of insulation can lead to large accumulations of ice at the edges of roofs that cause leaks in the home and destroy gutters.

In my next blog I'll talk about how to determine whether more insulation is necessary, and what critical steps need to be taken before adding insulation. Hint: the photos throughout this blog all show homes with major room for improvement!

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspections


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