It is quite common in the roofing industry to apply tarps over a roof
until the work can be completed. Nowadays, cheap blue tarps are
everywhere. It sounds like your roof is a flat roof so that complicates
the tarping situation just a little, but not much. If you have found a
competent company to do the work, they should be able to handle this
temporary situation for you at a small added cost. I see this
constantly in my neck of the woods. Some folks have left the roof
tarped over a year. It doesn't look good, but that's your penalty.

Al Bundy wrote:
It is quite common in the roofing industry to apply tarps over a roof
until the work can be completed. Nowadays, cheap blue tarps are
everywhere. It sounds like your roof is a flat roof so that complicates
the tarping situation just a little, but not much.

No, it's not flat. It's one of those gabled gambrel type roofs, very
steep and also high. To access, you need a big ladder and there's tons
of ice on the ground now - it's unsafe enough we're dubious ourselves
about climbing up there to knock the ice dams off.

If you have found a
competent company to do the work, they should be able to handle this
temporary situation for you at a small added cost. I see this
constantly in my neck of the woods. Some folks have left the roof
tarped over a year. It doesn't look good, but that's your penalty.

Does it get cold and drafty or what? The top floor is finished. Just
trying to figure how that works... what happens to the tarp if there's
a blizzard? Can a tarp withstand something like that?

jen

The steepness of your roof is a good thing from a leak standpoint. Your
ice damming problems have more to do with the insulation and
ventilation of the roof system. Properly insulated and vented you
should have NO ice damming. If all your leaks only come when the ice
dams build up, perhaps you don't even need a new roof. You need to
address the venting.

A properly installed tarp will easily stand a winter blizzard, but
again, I think you problem has more to do with lack of venting that
allows the dams to form.

Al Bundy wrote:
The steepness of your roof is a good thing from a leak standpoint. Your
ice damming problems have more to do with the insulation and
ventilation of the roof system. Properly insulated and vented you
should have NO ice damming. If all your leaks only come when the ice
dams build up, perhaps you don't even need a new roof. You need to
address the venting.

A properly installed tarp will easily stand a winter blizzard, but
again, I think you problem has more to do with lack of venting that
allows the dams to form.

I think you're absolutely correct about the insulation and ventilation.
Which raises and interesting question, since this is a duplex condo:
would adding insulation be the other owner's responsibility? Clearly a
new roof is joint responsibility (including replacement of rotten
boards if necessary), but is this one of those gray areas where it's
not clear whether it's one of those "outside the house" (joint
responsibility) or "inside the house" (individual responsibility).
Hmmm. Does anyone know?

Not that it probably makes any difference at all.... we would be happy
to get it all fixed, even though we're not the ones that are suffering
from major leaks. Our problem from the ice dams has more to do with the
fact that when they form, they make it hard to open our back door
because of the weight (I am concerned that eventually the water might
get into our frame, but so far, it seems okay as I've seen no leaks
around that area), and the dams are dangerous when they start melting
and giant blocks of ice are falling off the house.

However, I do think something else is going on than just the ice dams,
since we also had leaks in the summer when there was no ice at all but
it rained and rained for days. That's when even our own condo
experienced some minor leaks - nothing like what our neighbors are
having, but distressing enough. Just one 3-foot by 6 inch area in the
corner, underneath one of the neighbor's bump-out windows. It seems to
be okay ever since we cleared out the gutter on that side, so we
assumed it was a backed-up gutter issue. However this past weekend when
we were knocking off ice on that part of the roof, we noted that the
rake kinda bounced funny in that area... like the wood might be spongy
underneath?

jen

shinypenny wrote:
Al Bundy wrote:
The steepness of your roof is a good thing from a leak standpoint. Your
ice damming problems have more to do with the insulation and
ventilation of the roof system. Properly insulated and vented you
should have NO ice damming. If all your leaks only come when the ice
dams build up, perhaps you don't even need a new roof. You need to
address the venting.

A properly installed tarp will easily stand a winter blizzard, but
again, I think you problem has more to do with lack of venting that
allows the dams to form.

I think you're absolutely correct about the insulation and ventilation.
Which raises and interesting question, since this is a duplex condo:
would adding insulation be the other owner's responsibility? Clearly a
new roof is joint responsibility (including replacement of rotten
boards if necessary), but is this one of those gray areas where it's
not clear whether it's one of those "outside the house" (joint
responsibility) or "inside the house" (individual responsibility).
Hmmm. Does anyone know?

The organization I work for has a lot of experience with energy and
ventilation in homes and businesses. I'm just a computer geek, so that
is not my area of expertise. I'm only relaying what I've heard over
time.

Legally I don't know whose responsibility it would be but what the
folks here will say is that when in comes to things like insulation and
ventilation you need to look at the whole building as a system.

Changing insulation in one part of the building can have an adverse
effect on the ventilation in another part. If the house is too tight,
it can create moisture problems among other issues. It's possible the
rotted wood in your roof is from past ice dams and heavy rains but
usually wood that's allowed to dry won't rot. It's when it's
consistantly damp when you run into problems. There might warm moist
air escaping into your attic. We've discovered places where bathrooms
were vented straight into the attic, - bad news.

I guess what I'm saying that what's going now is affecting the
structural integrity of the building as a whole and if adding
insulation and ventilation is what it takes to fix it, then in my
opinion, everyone should pay.


Not that it probably makes any difference at all.... we would be happy
to get it all fixed, even though we're not the ones that are suffering
from major leaks. Our problem from the ice dams has more to do with the
fact that when they form, they make it hard to open our back door
because of the weight (I am concerned that eventually the water might
get into our frame, but so far, it seems okay as I've seen no leaks
around that area), and the dams are dangerous when they start melting
and giant blocks of ice are falling off the house.

However, I do think something else is going on than just the ice dams,
since we also had leaks in the summer when there was no ice at all but
it rained and rained for days. That's when even our own condo
experienced some minor leaks - nothing like what our neighbors are
having, but distressing enough. Just one 3-foot by 6 inch area in the
corner, underneath one of the neighbor's bump-out windows. It seems to
be okay ever since we cleared out the gutter on that side, so we
assumed it was a backed-up gutter issue. However this past weekend when
we were knocking off ice on that part of the roof, we noted that the
rake kinda bounced funny in that area... like the wood might be spongy
underneath?

jen