Ice Dam Prevention

Why ice dams form

Warm attic air leaks up and melts snow at the ridge. That meltwater runs down the roof to the cold eave, refreezes there, and blocks the next melt from draining. Backed up water finds the seam above your drip edge and runs in. The fix is to address one of three things: heat loss into the attic, snow load volume, or drainage capacity at the eave. Sometimes all three. Knowing which one to attack on your house is the actual job.

What we install

Self regulating heat cable along at risk eaves and inside downspouts, sized for Wisconsin winters. Upsized gutters and downspouts on north facing eaves where melt volume is highest. Drip edge flashing repair where missing. Where the underlying problem is heat leaking from a poorly vented attic, the fix lives up there, not at the gutter line, and we’ll say so.

What we tell you straight

Heat cable is the visible fix and the easy sell, but it’s a bandaid for the underlying problem. The real fix is almost always attic ventilation and insulation. If your ice dams trace back to the attic, that’s the recommendation even when it isn’t in our scope. Better to point you toward the right work than sell you cable on a house that needs insulation. That’s how contractors burn trust around here.