Here we snow again..

Wow Doug, sorry about that man. They were talking about ice damm removal on WAAF this morning, seems like legit roofer crews are charging $500/hour and up to steam ice off your roof - IF you can get any who are not fully booked. Crazy


I am also very nervous about the Sunday forecast. I had done the salt sock trick but half of them just fell off. I need to get back up there and put a bunch more up before we get hit with a downpour. So far the leaks I have are minor, I can see water running down the inside of the roof deck and just some spotting on the ceilings... but who knows what will happen with the rain.

The tough part is Ive spent so much time on this I just cant afford to loose more work over it now. Too far behind. And my wife (stay home mom) is going out of her mind with cabin fever and wants to get out somewhere with the kids but again Ill have to tell her I need to use the weekend to work on the roof.

 

Gutters and roof probably 2 1/2 stories, at 66 yrs old not gonna happen. gonna try ST.Jude.

I can relate to the lost time. as small as we are these days every $ is important to keeping us going. right now my nephew is shoveling off what he can of the 12.5k ft roof. same as he's been doing a few hrs/day for the last two weeks. my ticker precludes me from helping.(damm) next move saint of hopeless cases, St Jude

 

Doug, try to get creative if you can. Try the calcium chloride in the pantyhose method. If you have windows right below the gutters, you can take a broom handle and duct tape a dustpan to the end of it and fling it up on the roof. If you tie a string to the pantyhose you can pull it into position to melt a line through the dam.

I was up on our roof last night hammering out some channels in the dark and it was not fun. I almost tanked twice on the porch roof that had skim ice on it. I will be doing things different next winter for sure. Tomorrow is going to be cold and windy. Saturday will be my day to get up one more time and make sure I have clear channels off the roof through the ice.

 

That storm earlier in the week was predicted to give us another 14" - 24" of snow. As the week progressed, it is looking like 3" - 5" plus rain. I don't like the media hype of a storm a few days out because it is speculation other than it is going to hit us.

 

As others have mentioned big rains coming this weekend. Things are gonna get dicey, thats for sure.
The towns have not uncovered storm drains in the streets yet and anyone with a low pitched roof or a flat roof that
has significant snow on them will have troubles when the water saturates the snow pack.
I was on my dads roof today shoveling off 4 storms worth of snow. I'm prepping my basement tomorrow for water, not that I think it will stay dry, I know it will come in, theres no where for it to go.

 

last two days only 9 and 6 below the norms, I'm sure we all saw how our stoves handled the lighter load. two days of deep freeze and I won't say it. one of my old favorites, Mark Rosenthal, is not, not calling for heavy rain in Boston. have no idea what that means as you head deeper into the south shore. back to the temps, first 19 days this mo. -12.4 degrees. next mon-tues chill again. chance to break the all time cold record for feb in 1934. before the Boston heat island. hard to do

7:20 PS the last above normal temp day in Boston Jan. 20th

 

NWS latest? In the coastal plain .5 to 1 inch of rain. NOT GOOD! damm. posted 15 mins. ago?

 

This works... its what saved my backon in '10/11 when we had water coming in the kitchen.

Ive been trying it this year and its so cold a couple of them melted down and then new ice froze over the top!!! a bunch just fell off. Trying again.

 

After the spring rain deluge in 2009 when my basement almost flooded I spent a LOT of money improving my pump situation. Previously we just had a 1/3hp pedestal in a pit half full of sediment. I cleared the entire pit out, and replaced the pedestal with a Zoeller 1/3hp submersible backed up by a Basement watchdog big dog battery backup unit. And then I have the genny to back that up if the power goes out for a long time. Both pumps feed into a buried line that runs out and ties into a stormdrain below ground. I have no idea how prior owners got approval to do that but its a godsend as it never freezes up and you dont have to worry about the discharge soaking into the yard and coming right back in.

Probably spent over a grand doing all this but its great piece of mind.

 

It's official - we've got a dusting(if you can even call it that)...and the interstate is shut down

 

Does it look anything like this when it snows in Alabama?



I've been lucky with the ice dams this year. I bought a snow rake at home depot and have been trying to stay on top of not letting the snow buildup. It's 21' long but even then I can only get the bottom 3 feet of my roof. I was thinking of wheeling the generator around to get another three feet off the ground and scrape some more off the roof. It can be a lot of work but if your roof isn't that high snow rakes can go a long way in preventing ice dams.

 

Careful on this as I use a similar length rake and can get most of the way up the front side of the house leavng maybe 3-5 feet of snow near the peak. This year that cause an ice dam to form high up the roof line and is well above the bichethane barrier and causing some leaks at that point. I might have been better off leaving it alone this year-but in 15 years of clearing like this-it has not happened. This is a very different winter for sure

 

I didn't know you could get ice dams on the roof itself.

 

They broke into regular programming to show the dusting and subsequent wrecks all over the interstate.

There actually was a true natural gas shortage/squeeze over the past few days. Price spike made it economical to run on diesel ( I work for one of those evil electrical companies)

 

Yeah, me either but others have told me that this is common if you dont get the whole roof cleared. With such little melting between storms it happened. The is the direct sun side of the house so even 28-30 or higher degree temps with sunshine would normally take care of the upper portion quickly, but this year has been storm every 2-4 days and temps at least 20 degrees below average.

What ever happened to the old wives tale of "its too cold to snow"