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The joys of home ownership
We love the house dearly, but I think the honeymoon is over. This week, it developed its first real Problem.
Far as I can tell, the issue is ice dams. It looks like the front gutters have frozen solid, and they don't get much sun; the upper roof, however, does get a bit. So the melt comes down the roof, hits the gutter, can't get through it, and backs up into the flashing. Along most of the front, this isn't too terrible: it comes out the back of the flashing and runs down as icicles. Unfortunately, though, one of the things under that flashing is that lovely front bay window of ours.
So the past few days have been bucket-focused. Fortunately, the drips are well-behaved: there are about five distinct spots where it is coming through, and we've put big buckets under all of them. No significant damage from the drips yet, but the situation can't persist in the long run.
If the weather predictions come true, I suspect the problem will ease on Sunday -- it should get warm enough to melt the gutters, at which point I expect the worst of the problem to go away. But come spring, we'll have to look into a better solution. I suspect that will involve restructuring of that gutter, but I'm not sure of the details yet.
Oh, well. Compared to the old house (whose roof got ripped off in a hurricane, producing one of the worst weeks for me ever), this is pretty minor stuff. It's still a nice house, just showing the warts now that we've been in it a while...
Far as I can tell, the issue is ice dams. It looks like the front gutters have frozen solid, and they don't get much sun; the upper roof, however, does get a bit. So the melt comes down the roof, hits the gutter, can't get through it, and backs up into the flashing. Along most of the front, this isn't too terrible: it comes out the back of the flashing and runs down as icicles. Unfortunately, though, one of the things under that flashing is that lovely front bay window of ours.
So the past few days have been bucket-focused. Fortunately, the drips are well-behaved: there are about five distinct spots where it is coming through, and we've put big buckets under all of them. No significant damage from the drips yet, but the situation can't persist in the long run.
If the weather predictions come true, I suspect the problem will ease on Sunday -- it should get warm enough to melt the gutters, at which point I expect the worst of the problem to go away. But come spring, we'll have to look into a better solution. I suspect that will involve restructuring of that gutter, but I'm not sure of the details yet.
Oh, well. Compared to the old house (whose roof got ripped off in a hurricane, producing one of the worst weeks for me ever), this is pretty minor stuff. It's still a nice house, just showing the warts now that we've been in it a while...
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I'm vaguely aware of roof rakes, but I don't know that I've ever actually seen one. Something for me to consider, although I'd need to take a look at the angles and make sure it's actually plausible that even 25' is long enough. (The angle of the roof is a bit shallow, and it's two stories up, so I might have to stand a fair ways back to get a good enough angle.)
electric heating cable *can* be useful, once the dam is gone, to prevent reoccurence, by running it THROUGH the gutter AND downspout.
We actually have this in one of the *back* gutters of the house -- indeed, a fairly ridiculous length of it, judging from how many times it seems to loop around in the gutter. It came with the house, but I haven't actually used it much because it makes me a little suspicious: it draws so much current that I can actually see the lights dim, which smells like a possible short to me. (Although it may just be that it's way too *much* heat cable for the purpose.)
heat tapes and roof rakes
So, it might make sense to turn that one that's installed on now, if you are seeing a possible dam in it's gutter.
I have a roof rake, and will post a picture of it later, at mhb.wiglaf.org/TEMP/roofrake/ It's not there yet.
Mine is actually closer to 17' than to 25', nor that I've gotten it out and looked at it. It works on my first floor eaves. I have to stand about 10' from the house to use it, as I recall, and it helps to be able to move back and forth closer and further from the house.