Where Do Ice Dams Normally Happen on Homes? A List of the Most Common Ice Dam Locations
Where ice dams happen…and don’t happen:
Ice dams seldom occur over unheated areas such as garages and porches (A).
The valley areas of dormers frequently get ice dams (B).
Ice dams often occur both below and above skylights. Ice dams above skylights are hard to see from the ground, making them some of the sneakiest to discover (C).
Any openings through the roof – such as pipes and vents – are a good place for small ice dams for form (D).
Valleys are very common areas for ice dam formation. It is important to never use hammers or chisels near valleys as the difference between a thorough ice removal job and valley damage is fractions of an inch (E).
On roofs with a low pitch (angle) even a 1-2″ ice dam can cause significant leaking and interior damage (F).
The eaves edge is the most common place to see ice dams. 80% of the dams we remove are found here (G).
Interior rooms with vaulted ceilings are frequently associated with large ice dams. Bathrooms are often the worst. If you had recessed lighting to a vaulted ceiling, you are much more likely to have ice dams (H).
Ice dams occasionally form around chimneys and furnace flues. Any place heat escapes through the roof line. Ice dams in these locations can be very, very small and still cause leaking (I).
How to Know if You Have an Ice Dam Problem or Just Some Pretty Icicles
Here are six things you can look out for when determining how severe your roof ice dam issues may be:
Icicles forming on the edge of your roof (with or without gutters).
Ice begins to build on top of the gutter or lower edge of roof. Remember: Ice dams as little as 1″ thick can cause big problems on certain roods. Don’t be fooled by small ice dams.
Icicles forming behind the gutter, or worse, behind the facia.
Ice begins coming through the soffits, normally through vents or through seams in the soffit. This is bad news. Next stop, your ceilings.
Ice or water shows up on the siding or exterior wall surface. Ice can appear in the anywhere along the wall, even randomly in the middle.
Ice or water shows up inside your home or around the window frame (interior or exterior). This is really bad news.
Call The Ice Dam Company at 952.935.9469 for help with your ice dams today.
$.78 to $1.22 Per Heat Cable Clip (Traditional, mechanically fastened clip used for standard asphalt roofs)
$25.00 to $35.00 Per Heat Cable Clip (Slotted clip used for slate, tile and cedar roofs)
$.78 to $1.22 Per Heat Cable Clip (Traditional, mechanically fastened clip)
We sell a wide variety of clips, brackets and doohickies for the installation of ice dam heat cable. There are three basic varieties of clips one can buy through the Ice Dam Company.
Roof clips for ice dam heat cables
Mechanically Fastened Heat Cable Clips:
This type of clip is either nailed or screwed onto the roof. It is by far the most common clip sold on The Ice Dam Company website and is used primarily to secure heat cables and roof deicing wire to asphalt roofs. Our installers use these clips to install ice dam heat cable by either nailing or screwing the clips directly to the roof surface, usually in conjunction with a blob of special polyurethane caulk. Once installed, these clips are used to hold the ice dam cable in place permanently without creating wear points that might eventually abrade through the cable and cause issues with functionality. The average cost of these heat cable and roof deicing wire clips for ice dam control is $.78 to $1.22 Per Heat Cable Clip, depending on style, color and order quantity.
Slotted Clips and Brackets for Heat Cable:
As the name suggests, this family of clips is slotted in order to allow installers to use existing fasteners on a roof system to hold the clip in place. The most common application is the slate roof clip or cedar roof clip. Such clips are slipped up, under the existing roofing material and hooked around the nails being used to hold the clip in place. Using slotted heat cable clips is the suggested method of installing heat cable and roof deicing cables on slate roofs and sometimes on cedar roofs because of the non-invasive, non-destructive nature of the install. Slotted roof heat cable and roof deicing clips are far more expensive for ice dam prevention installations than traditional heat cable clips. The average cost of these heat cable and roof deicing wire clips for ice dam control is $25.00 to $35.00 Per Heat Cable Clip, depending on style, color and order quantity. The vast majority of the slotted clips we sell are made of copper and are for use on slate roofs.
Glue-on clips for ice dam heat cable and roof deicing cable:
The third and final style of clips we sell are Glue-on clips. These clips are used on metal and single ply roofing systems, such are EPDM (rubber) and TPO membranes. Installing heat cable and roof deicing wire on metal roofs is not nearly as common as on other systems such as asphalt roofs and slate roofs. Metal roofs are simply less prone to ice dams, or more specifically, to damage caused by ice dams. Single ply systems, or roof membranes like TPO or rubber roofs, are even less likely to suffer from the ill consequences of ice dams. This explains why we sell less of this style of roof clip than any other. The average cost of these heat cable and roof deicing wire clips for ice dam control is $.92 to $4.55 Per Heat Cable Clip, depending on style, color and order quantity.
I was recently interviewed by Realtor Magazine for a piece about preparing home buyers for severe weather –including Ice Dams, why ice dams happen and ice dam prevention methods.
The piece also discusses other weather related problems and disasters that can happen from strong winter weather. Check it out. I am frequently interviewed from media and professional sources from all around the country on the topic of ice dams because I started The Ice Dam Company so long ago. We are in fact the largest and the oldest ice dam prevention and ice dam removal company in the country. Before the Ice Dam Company, no other company existed that specialized in this area of business. Now, of course, the web is littered with ‘experts’ and ‘specialists’ purporting to be leaders.
Attic insulation contractor addresses ice dams with new insulation in Edina
Using the words ‘ice dam prevention’ in Minneapolis is a dangerous gamble. It’s true that with certain efforts one can greatly reduce the chances of getting ice dams, it is almost impossible to prevent them altogether. For example, we can do a top quality insulation and ventilation retrofit on a Minneapolis attic only to be thwarted by the fact that the homeowner likes to keep the attic at 90 degrees in the winter. That is a formula for ice dam disaster in Minnesota. There are a number of methods to employ in preventing ice dams (or reducing their severity, in some cases). Here are links to two such approaches used by our sister company, Kuhl’s Contracting, a nationally recognized ice dam prevention company.
Homeowners looking to fix or at least minimize the risk of ice dams in Minnesota are wise to look at the key contributing factors that spawn ice dams. Those are, the weather, insulation, ventilation, air leaks, personal lifestyle and home architecture. We are frequently successful in reducing and/or eliminating ice dams through the use of high performance spray foam insulation systems in combination with enhanced attic ventilation.
construction site ice removal, commercial ice removal, ice accumulation removal minneapolis, ice dam company
We have been called by property managers and builders to remove ice from a number of odd areas in Minneapolis over the years. Heck, we have even removed ice during the summer around cooling condensers at a chemical plant. While we frequently use our high-end steamers for the removal of ice, sometimes they are simply not appropriate. Such was the case on a recent job at a hotel under construction. A thin layer of ice had built up on the surface of a concrete floor that was perfectly flat…and huge. Using steamers in this application would have possibly resulted in making the problem worse by adding more water to the situation. While our steamers don’t generate much water, any time you melt ice, water is the result. Hence, my concern was that we would create a big mess. I suggested that we go old-school on this challenge. I sent three of my guys out there to hack and chip the ice with shiny, new scrapers. The resulting ice chips were simply blown and swept off the concrete, allowing the project carpenters to follow closely behind and lay out the wall framing without concern. It’s a low tech solution but sometimes that is what’s best.
Ice removal minneapolis commercial ice removal from flat surface
I’ve been working on a new graphic to describe the basics for homeowners in Minneapolis to identify a problematic ice dam. It’s true that some ice dams cause no problems. The key consideration in determining whether or not an ice dam is a current problem is all about where you see ice. Study this drawing closely and you will see that any ice behind the facia is a bad sign. Ice through the soffit, down the exterior wall or through the window frame is very bad thing. Leaks caused by ice dams minneapolis
We came across an article giving a basic overview of ice dams on About.com. One particular part of the article rang out in familiar tones:
Rows of icicles along the roof of a house look very pretty but they are often a symptom of an ice dam. An ice dam is caused by snow melting from the roof of a house, but then freezing in the gutters creating a dam. (our emphasis)
It’s a common misconception that gutters are somehow a required ingredient to the ice dam recipe. It’s understandable why this falsehood perpetuates: a gutter is a basin that will catch running water, it’s typically a metal-material so in cold it conducts low temperatures, and gutters live on the edge of the overhang, where ice dams form. –But it’s not explicitly why they form.
Why do Ice Dams form then?
The temperature in your attic should be as close to the temperature outside as possible, but when heat escapes your house, snow on your roof can melt. Even when your attic houses a higher temperature then it should (you have some home performance issues), when that melted water on your roof gets to the overhang, it can refreeze, because there’s no heat source directly below it.
Looking at the illustration, you can see we aren’t even showing a gutter, and it’s definitely not uncommon for an ice dam to form in this situation.
Although gutters are not a requirement for an ice dam to form, and having no gutters is not an ice dam prevention solution, gutter ice can cause major damage, simply because of the way a gutter attaches to the overhang facia, and can collect a lot of weight in ice.
Removing Ice Dams in Minnesota: We Serve Many Areas in the Minneapolis Metro
The Ice Dam company based out of Hopkins, Minnesota, about 5 miles west of Minneapolis. We've done gutter ice removal, roof ice removal and ice dam removal all over the Twin Cities, on new houses and old ones.
Some of the more frequent places we've done ice dam services are:
