Ice Dam Removal Service in Maple Grove, MN
During Minnesota's long, cold winters, you want to be cozy inside your home, ticking off the days until spring. But if you have an ice dam on your roof, you might be in for costly repairs. Ice dams are common. What should you do if you see ice dams along your eaves? DON'T WAIT!
Contact Intelligent Design Corp. today – ice dams are a very serious problem. They can cause water to back up your roof and into your exterior walls. Once this happens, the insulation in your walls also gets wet, and this will reduce the insulating factor as well as cause mold growth if left unrepaired.
If you suspect ice dams, contact us ASAP! We’ll be happy to get you started with a free quote.
What Causes Ice Dams & Why Should You Care?
An ice dam is a ridge of ice that forms at the roof's edge and prevents melting snow from draining off the roof. The water that backs up behind the dam can leak into a home and cause damage to walls, ceilings, insulation, and other parts of the house.
How Ice Dams Form
Snow on your roof melts as the heat works through your ceilings, access hatches, doors, ceiling lights, and other utilities. These penetrations can extend into your attic space, heating up the roof deck surface and shingles. The heat that ends up in your attic space builds up due to inadequate venting and insulation.
As the snow on the roof slowly melts, the water runs down the warmer roof surface until it reaches the roof edge/overhang (eaves), where it then freezes on the colder surface of the unheated roof edge. This freezing causes a small ridge of ice continuously fed by more melted snow further up the roof. Then the water begins to build up behind the ice dam, and this causes obvious problems.
Eventually, the water builds up and finds its way under the shingles, onto the roof decking, into your living space, and between the walls.
How to Remove Ice Dams & Snow On the Roof
Removing an Ice dam is dangerous work, and we do not recommend homeowners or business owners remove snow and ice from roofs. Every year, there are reports of Minnesotans falling off roofs, getting seriously hurt, and even killed.
At Intelligent Design Corp., we never send anyone out to a snow and ice removal job by themselves; We mandate that there are always two individuals working together. Our team of experts will assess the situation and then recommend what to do.
If water enters the home, our first task is to stop the intrusion. This usually means creating an outlet for the water that is backing up. Once we have slowed the water intrusion, we remove snow as much as feasible but never completely down to the shingles. Removing snow and ice is difficult to do, and we do not want to cause any damage to your shingles.
Once the snow is reduced, we will remove as much ice as possible using steam to melt and loosen it.
How Can Ice Dams Be Prevented?
Since ice dams form from heat building up in the attic, we look at how the heat is getting into the attic and why it is not getting out. Your representative from Intelligent Design Corp. will thoroughly investigate, including using a thermal imager.
A report will be generated for you explaining where the problems exist and how to alleviate them, usually by means of additional venting and insulation. The cost to produce this report and fix the problem is made up by not having to do any more water damage repairs and your energy cost savings by adding more insulation.
Are Ice Dams Considered an Insurance Issue?
By all means, YES! Usually, the ice dam itself is not a coverable issue (we have seen a few insurance providers cover the ice dam removal).
But once water gets into your walls and living areas and causes water damage, insurance will cover the costs of the repairs. The cost can be quite significant when all costs are considered to make repairs back to the original condition before the damage occurred.
Intelligent Design Corp. Removes Ice Dams in the Twin Cities
Call us immediately for assistance! Please take pictures of the ice dam and the water damage it caused so we can help you with the storm damage and insurance claims process.