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Prevent roof icicles & water damage with our expert insulation services
Frozen gutters and icicles hanging from your roof eaves are tell-tale signs of ice dams. An ice dam on your roof can cause damage to shingles, resulting in water leaks in your attic and damage to drywall, furniture, and flooring inside your home.
While a roofing contractor can provide a temporary solution to your ice damming problem, Pipe Works Services, Inc. can prevent future ice dams by sealing air leaks and improving the insulation in your attic.
Call us at (973) 657-5771 or click the button below to request your in-home energy audit and an estimate! We service Chatham, Madison, Summit, and surrounding areas.
What causes ice damming?
Ice damming occurs when heat from inside your attic warms the underside of the roof and causes snow and ice on the roof to melt. When the water hits the cold overhang and gutters, it will refreeze and form an ice dam and icicles.
As the ice builds up a dam near the eave, melting water and rainwater will puddle behind the ice dam, and can leak underneath roof shingles and into your home. A water spot on your ceiling is a sign of a leaky roof.
Several factors can lead to ice dams, including inadequate attic insulation, poor attic ventilation, and clogged gutters.
- Leaking roof
- Wet insulation
- Leaking ceiling
- Siding Damage
- Paint deterioration
- Growth of mold and mildew
When snow on the roof is melted by heat escaping from the attic, and the melted snow re-freezes, this causes ice damming on the roof of your home. Eventually water can start leaking in, creating a ton of damage.
Thick icicles hanging from roof eaves could indicate a serious ice dam problem.
Huge icicles forming around the gutters and eaves can prevent the flow of water, causing it to build up and break your gutters and leak water into your home.
This snow-covered roof may look nice, but icicles are a sign of energy loss through the attic, which could be costing the homeowner a lot of money in fuel and heating costs.
How to prevent ice dams
Chipping away at the ice on your roof can cause damage to your shingles. The best solution for preventing ice dams and winter roof leaks is to properly air seal and insulate your home. These upgrades will pay for themselves fuel and electricity savings, as well as provide you with a more comfortable, less drafty home.
We offer all the solutions you need to prevent ice damming:
- Seal & insulate air ducts
Ducts must be sealed to prevent leaks in an attic and insulated well to prevent heat loss (and heat gain in the summer). Your furnace may heat the air to 100 degrees or more and send it through leaky sheet metal ducts through a 30-degree attic. Heat inevitably gets into the attic it’s running through. This means you get less heat delivered to the room intended – so you have to run the furnace more to keep your home heated – and that costs you money.Attic vents are less necessary in an attic that is properly air sealed, insulated, and has its ducts taken care of properly; however, the ducts will keep the roof deck very close to the outdoor temperature, since they don’t have all the heat (and moisture) to vent out as they did before the home was “fixed.”
- Air sealing & attic insulation
Air sealing should always be done before adding insulation. In addition to preventing ice dams in the winter, attic air sealing can help solve other issues like drafty rooms, uneven temperatures, and high heating or cooling bills. Sealing leaks will help your attic insulation perform as it should. By insulating without air sealing first, air leaks (such as around can lights, drywall to stud seams, pipe, and wire holes, openings around chimneys and duct chases, etc.) that need to be sealed will be buried under a foot or more of insulation.We offer effective air sealing and a wide range of high-performance attic insulation options, including spray foam and blown-in insulation.
Let us solve your ice dam & comfort problems at the same time!
For an effective solution to your ice dam problem, contact the energy specialists at Pipe Works Services, Inc. today to request an inspection and get an estimate to upgrade your home insulation. We work in Union, Short Hills, Basking Ridge, Florham Park, Millburn, Clifton, Somerset, and throughout the state.
We can also conduct a home energy evaluation to pinpoint the problem areas in your home and provide you with a list of recommended improvements that can provide you with the greatest comfort and energy savings.
Watch this video to learn how ice dams form and how Pipe Works Services, Inc., your local Dr. Energy Saver contractor, can help prevent them! An Ice dam forms on the edge of a roof and traps water behind it that can leak into the home. These leaks cause damage to walls, ceilings and insulation.
