How to Prevent Ice Dams

Video Transcript

"In the Summer it is a great roof, even when it rains but in the Wintertime the water comes in because we have got a problem with ice dams. This is Robert Markey. I've been doing construction for many years and we're going to talk about preventing ice dams. Now ice dams are caused because the temperature under the roof is greater than freezing so in the Winter when the snow comes down it melts the snow on the roof, it blows down to where the eaves are, where the temperature is definitely below freezing because it is outside and it freezes and you get ice built up here and higher up and the water that comes down comes in and how do you prevent that, well there are two things that you can do. One, insulate your attic. Insulate your attic real well so the temperature in the attic is not being heated by your home temperature and so it is below freezing, the snow never melts and so there is no ice dam to form. The other thing you want to do is allow the air to flow up here through your eaves which is why you want to vent your eaves so you have got cold air that flows from here up and you want your peak to be vented or your ends to be vented so the cold air is flowing up there and outside so the air right under the roof is below freezing and if you add that to your attic insulation you've got no melting and if you've got no melting down here, you've got no freezing and you've got no ice dams. So those are the main way to prevent ice dams, the flow through and the insulation of the attic. This is Robert Markey and we've been talking about preventing ice dams."