Sometimes I like to go off the beaten path of real estate and talk a little about home maintenance. This post is one of them.
Living in Waltham, MA and more importantly in New England; we have to face the fact we have all types of crazy weather. This winter season we have been hit hard with lots of snow. When it piles up, especially on a roof, it can start to cause serious issues. One of the most common is the ICE DAM.
An ice dam forms, when snow on the roof melts and flows into the gutters which also have snow in it and freezes. Soon the ice and builds up on itself, forming a dam which stops the water from flowing off the roof. As it backs up against itself, it keeps freezing backward up the roof where soon the water has only one place to go, under the roofing shingles and into the house. Common places to see water dripping in the house are around the top windows and doors. Ice Dams, once formed, are hard to treat. I found a simple, smart way to remedy this problem; and it gets the water flowing off the roof once again. Its call the Ice Dam Sock and it works.
The ice dam sock is easy to assemble with commonly found materials around the house. Find an old tube sock(s) or stocking(s) with no holes and fill it with standard ice melt. Once the sock is full, tie the end up and attach some rope, twine or heavy string to the end of the sock with the knot. You now have yourself an ice dam sock. Place the sock on the roof, making sure it’s perpendicular with the roof. In other words, one end of the sock is pointing towards the peak of the roof and the other is almost hanging over the gutter. In a short time, the melting power of the sock creates a channel for the water to travel directing it off the roof. After some time, you may want to move the sock to another area of the roof or for best results; make a few more socks. To help demonstrate this technique I found a video.
I really hope you don’t ever have an ice dam but if you do this trick may work, it did for me.
Kenneth Brown
