"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
Even heat tapes had mixed results during a heavy snowfall.

I can remember when I was 16 and living in my grandmother's house, (which
had a really low pitched roof), my father sent me up on it to install
heating wires. Problem was, that it was the middle of winter, so I had to
spend a number of hours up there shovelling off the snow and chopping up the
ice dams before I could lay the wire. Naturally, dad came out to inspect for
five minutes every half hour.

After that, every fall I was up there like clockwork making sure those
heating wires were still working properly. Damned if I was going to be up
there again in the middle of winter freezing my butt off.