Ice Dams

Or probably more appropriately:

Damn Ice!!!

The back [east] porch at 3283 isn't heated. But we wrapped it in plastic last fall. This seems to have trapped some heat in it. Heat that escaped from the house or was generated through solar heating. The heat was enough to melt snow on the un-insulated roof and create a major ice dam at the edge. Behind the dam a lot...I mean a LOT... of snow built up.

There is a brand new roof on the porch....and we had heavy duty "ice guard" installed under the shingles, so I'm not too concerned about leaks. And any leak would only be onto the porch. But, they are predicting a thaw this week...and even rain in a few days. So I decided to try to remove as much of the snow as I could today. No, I didn't climb out on the roof. I used a roof-rake to push the snow off [from the upstairs bedroom windows]. It wasn't fun. It wasn't easy. It showed just how much ice is up there.

The pictures below aren't very exciting. But since I haven't posted in a while they, at least, prove that life goes on here at 3283.

The largest drift was at the south end of the porch.
You may be able to see the thickness of the ice along the edge of the roof.

Here's a close-up of that large drift.
See the 'wedge' of ice at the right.

There was no way to reach the snow from below....even with a roof rake. So I attacked the cold white enemy from above. I opened the bedroom windows and pushed the snow off as best I could.

Pushing snow with a tool made for pulling. Oh, well.

Another shot of the tool and the snow.

The first effort was at the south end where snow was deepest.
All the snow pushed from the roof, obviously, ended up on the deck
and needed to be moved again.

This time the tool is out the north window.
I often pulled some snow toward me to loosen it...then pushed it off the edge.

On the north side I was able to clear some snow down to shingles.

South side...basically done.

North side...basically done.

Here's the east side of 3283 with much snow removed from the porch roof.
I'll let you all know how it handles the thaw and rain this week.