Not clearing your roof in the winter can be dangerous

As snow as forseen in the near future, its important to keep up on cleaning areas around your home of snow. These include driveways, walkways, and what most people forget, the roof. When snow starts to collect on the roof of your house you are more than likely going to see the damage and effects it could have. Not only does the snow put a weight on the house that is stress on it, but it also could be the reason you are seeing leaks.

When the snow sits the roof the heat from inside the house rises to the top melting the upper portions and it sliding down your roof only to freeze in the eves. This creates an ice dam on your room that when the next snowfall comes it gets bigger and bigger. These dams collect with water that can than ultimately run up your roof. Shingles are designed for water flow down them so it is no surprise that water going in the other direction would mean it slipping through the cracks and damaging your home.

No matter if you have a slopped roof or a flat one, you need to remove this snow. Some people will try and just remove the first few feet up the roof. This is not an effective method and still creates the ice dams on the roof. It is recommended that you do not go up on the roof as it is unsafe with the slippery conditions. Instead one method is to take potassium chloride ( common ice melt or softer salt ) and put them in a paper bag or another material the salt can get through. Make sure the bag has a good amount of pellets and then toss them on your roof. These will then distengrate and melt the ice dams. This can also be done with calcium chloride tablets all of which can be found at your local hardware store.