Preventing Ice Dams in Windham, CT

Wednesday, October 20th, 2021 by Stephanie Cartwright

Challenge

Ice dams are ridges of ice that form at a roof’s edge or around drains, preventing melting snow from properly draining from your roof. This can occur in homes that have pitched or flat roofs. Water that backs up behind the ice dam can leak into the building under the shingles or through cracks and openings in the exterior roof covering causing damage to walls, ceilings, insulation, flooring and other materials or construction. This leads to costly repairs and lots of problems when it's cold out and you rather be snuggling up in a blanket on the couch. Be Proactive! Call us before you run into a problem!

Solution

Here is an example of a Solution for Fixing Ice Dams in a Cape:

In a Cape Style home, often times the home suffers from inadequate insulation and air leaking in through the soffits into the kneewall spaces.

To solve this problem, we first remove all existing batt insulation and prep for new insulation in the attic area and air seal the can lights (if applicable) in the cathedral ceiling. We then install our SuperKneeWall™ Insulation System with SilverGlo™ on the walls and between floor joists as needed. We dense pack the roof, through the soffits with blown-in TruSoft™ Cellulose Insulation, air seal the floor with ZypFoam™ and then insulate the attic floor with TruSoft™ Cellulose as well.

The second floor of this home is now properly air sealed and insulated and airflow will be distributed evenly throughout the home resulting in lower energy bills and no more ice dams!