Thought I Was Through

I figured that once we got our standing seam roof in, I was done raking the roof, but it seems that this may not be the case. This came to light the other day at the Winter fest when I was talking to DH. He said he’d spent the previous day standing on the roof clearing ice and snow off. They have a metal roof, and I asked what the problem was. He said you can run into trouble when the ice forms and water collects (melts) underneath it. Then it can leak into the house and eventually cause the roof to rot.

Big bummer. Our roof has been working beautifully thus far, especially on the backside, where the problems were the most acute. We have southern exposure back there, so the warmth melts the snow and it slides right off. The front, however, doesn’t get much sun, so most of it falls off, but the section right above and between the dormers stalls and collects. This wouldn’t be a big deal, but we had that sleet that froze, causing the snow to become heavy ice.

I spoke with KB of Boland Custom Home Improvement (our go-to guy for home improvement problems) and he said it wouldn’t be a bad idea. He is also the one who told me that the dormers were causing the backup. So, I broke out the roof rake, which wasn’t easy because the kids have been using the poles to help make their ice forts, so I had to search and locate them.

I raked the roof, and managed to dislodge most of the ice dam that had formed, hopefully clearing the way for the rest of the snow to slide. The chunks of ice the slid down must have weight 30 pounds, which is kind of scary when it comes down the roof at high speed.

For now, I think we’re in okay shape, and this may be the one and only time that I’ll have to rake, but like many things in Vermont, you just never know.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.