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Wayne.B

On Sun, 22 Mar 2015 11:28:42 -0400, wrote:

We were fortunate. We had ice build up in the gutters but nothing backed
up under the shingles and into the interior walls and we didn't lose any
gutters. I think (but am not sure) that we have heater wires in the
eves. I know there's a ridge heater because there's a breaker in the
power panel for it and I checked it with a clamp-on ammeter and it was
drawing current. The reason I think there are also heaters in the eves
that run off the same circuit is because even though the gutters were
solid ice, there was still water dripping over them, even when the
temperature outside was in the single digits.

I swept off all the snow I could get at and then used the air chisel
to surgically cut some channels for the water to escape. Once the
water started moving during the day, the holes opened pretty fast.
It was a one day problem.
I had never seen it before and I lived in Md for 38 years.

===

It was a very common problem in the Upstate NY snow belt where I grew
up. A lot of houses had wide copper strips on the edge of the roof
which helped to keep ice from accumulating. If an ice dam did form
we'd use an axe or hatchet to chop a channel or two for the water to
run off. Some care was required and I don't miss it at all.

Our last house in the north had a large bay window in the front which
was prone to forming ice dams.