On Thu, 30 Jan 2014 11:18:40 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:59:18 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

For those of you not in snow country..
Some of you got dumped on..

It pays to get the snow off the 1st 2 feet of the roof. I have a snow
rake and get about 4 feet off. But assuming most of you southerners
don't have it.

Take a broom and try to get the 2 feet at the bottom of your roofs
cleared. It may save you lots of money in rotted wood, or your shop
if you have a basement shop.

Years ago the ice damn caused a lot of water to run inside the house
and it travelled the joists and soaked a lot of wood and also rusted
a lot of stuff.

Just an FYI..


I would not think that a properly vented roof would ice dam.

They sure do. All of the practices of creating venting, minimizing heat
loss, etc. are valid, but they do not stop ice damns under the right
conditions. That's why we use water and ice barriers in the north country.
Mine extends probably 3 times higher up my roof than even the most cautious
recommendations, and across my valleys as well.

Metal roofs do go a lot further to combat this problem but you have to like
that look. And... you have to think about all of that snow sliding off your
roof - unintended consequences and all that stuff.

I had a near miss in Flagstaff, AZ one day when a couple of feet of
snow slid off a metal roof just as I stepped out of the way. I had a
blessed day!