Sunday, November 7, 2010

Why Not Use a Hose
to Melt Snow on Your Roof?

 
I'm way behind on answering email.
I got the following email message
from someone in January:


I have a tall 2-story house. In order
to use a roof rake, I would need a 30
ft pole.

I could very feasibly take a hose to my
attic and spray hot water on the gutters
and lower portion of the roof and melt
the snow. However, at one online site, it
said not to use water. Why not? Any ideas?


I don't have an expert answer for this
person. However, the obvious answer might
be ice dams. You don't want to create
more ice than you already have if the outside
temperature is below 32 degrees.

Ed Abbott
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. Rob MorehouseJanuary 16, 2011 at 4:54 AM

    I had noticed in your "How to Rake Snow off your roof" that you only talked about preventing the roof from collapsing. I am glad in your response to this question that you mentioned ice dams. That is MY primary purpose in using my snow rake.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ed AbbottJanuary 24, 2011 at 5:16 PM

    Thanks Rob. You are right! I also have done a fair amount of roof-raking to prevent ice dams. I'm sure this is a far more common problem than a collapsed roof. The next time I tweak the article, I think I'll mention this. Thanks for the tip!

    Ed Abbott

    ReplyDelete
  3. William GulliverJuly 5, 2012 at 1:37 PM

    A good solution to prevent ice dams from forming is to install insulation between your roof and the ceiling. This way, there would be a constant temperature between them. By the way, that's true, using water to melt the ice dams might cause the ice to thicken. You can use water if you like, but, make sure that it is hot and boiling. You can also hire contractors if you’re having trouble getting rid of them.

    William Gulliver

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownFebruary 12, 2015 at 4:48 PM

      Water will cause damage to the roof, shingles, gutters etc.

      Delete

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