One of the most destructive things that can happen to your roof in the winter is the formation of ice dams. It might look picturesque to have ice hanging from your roof during the winter months, but underneath it all, your roof could be sustaining significant damage that could lead to a premature roof replacement. To avoid having ice dams form on your roof, it is important that you know what causes ice dams in the first place. First Choice Roofing is here to talk about ice dams and what cause them so that we can avoid them before they ever even form.
Factors that Cause Ice Dams
There are a few different factors that can play a role in the formation of ice dams. We would like to take a closer look at all of them:
– Heat in the Attic: The most common reason why ice forms on your roof is because there is too much heat in the attic. If your attic isn’t energy efficient with enough insulation and ventilation, it can cause ice to form quite easily. If there is heat in your attic, there is going to be heat on your roof. Heat on your roof causes snow to melt and then freeze over and over again and ice dams will form.
– Changing Temperatures: On factor in ice dam formation is out of your hands and that is the temperature fluctuating. If the weather is allowing the snow to melt during the day but cold temperatures at night causes it to freeze, then this is out of your hands. If this is what is happening with your roof, you are going to want to get as much snow off of your roof as possible with the help of a rake. Then you don’t have snow that is melting and freezing, causing damage to your roof.
– Radiant Heat: Even when you have temperatures that are hovering at or below freezing, you could have some snow that is melting on your roof because of the radiant heat from the sun. This is another factor that is out of your control. The only thing that you can control in this situation is getting the snow off of your roof. Just make sure you are doing it in a way that isn’t putting you in danger. Snow rakes are a great tool to get this done depending on how high up your roof is.
– Perfect Weather: There is a perceived perfect temperature of about 30-32 degrees that will keep the snow from melting on your roof. However, if it even raises one degree, you could have snow that starts to melt and then freeze at the roof line.
Roof Replacement, Repair & More in Reading, Wyomissing, Blandon, Shillington, Ephrata, Columbia, Lititz, Millersville, Mount Joy and Lancaster, PA
If you are struggling with ice dams, you can turn to First Choice Roofing to help you deal with them. We will make sure that your roof hasn’t sustained any damage and work to repair the damage that has become a problem. Call us today!
