“Yes, it’s kind of getting a little tough her,” said Easterling.
Greg Oldiges, owner of Williams Brothers Roofing and Siding, said this year's snowy conditions have led to the worst ice dams he's seen in his nearly 30 year career.
Oldiges explained what causes ice dams.
“A combination of things, but primarily it’s a warm roof, where you have a lack of insulation in the attic,” said Oldiges.
Proper insulation keeps the heat inside your home, which allows your roof to remain cold.
“If you don’t have a cold roof, then you have the heat from your home rising up through there,” said Oldiges.” Then it melts the snow, comes down towards the edge and causes ice dams.”
The ice dams are located in the gutters. When ice overflows the gutters, icicles form.
Oldiges said people don’t need to knock down icicles. However, if they are worried about icicles falling and injuring people, they should knock them down carefully.
“Use a shovel or a rake and stand back and bang them down out of your way,” said Oldiges.
Oldiges cautions people not to chisel away at ice dams.
“I’ve had customers actually take screw drivers and ice picks and axes and then once the snow and ice is melted away they have hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of damage to their roof,” said Oldiges.
Instead, when ice dams are causing damage to gutters, or leaking into someone’s home Easterling gently scrapes the snow off the roof with a snow rake, and then uses a deicer.
“If it’s a one story house kind of throw it up on the roof and it’ll help melt the ice that’s in the gutter a little faster,” said Easterling.
Easterling doesn’t recommend getting on a snowy roof, or climbing up to a second story roof. That’s the experts’ job.
Roofing experts expect to see many more problems with ice damming before the winter’s over.