An alert “06880” reader writes:
Hey Dan, maybe you could post something asking for recommendations for contractors or whomever will clean off roofs. I’m worried about killing myself. Maybe we give some local entrepreneurs some business.
A great idea. Click “comments” to recommend anyone you know — or yourself.
Caveat emptor: This is a blog, not the Better Business Bureau. Do due diligence before hiring!
first, call your insurance company – they are motivated in this since they pay your claim from interior water damage. this is one way you find out whether or not you have a good insurance company.
a good insurance company will have a list of reliable local service providers that specialize in clearing roofs and ice dams. they will dispatch them if you tell them you suspect interior water intrusion.
Just to let you know… The hourly rate for roof snow removal is $95 an hour to $150 an hour. I live in a small house in comparison to many. it took me several hours to remove snow with a roof rake and many more to de-dam my gutters. It is not a cheap proposition.
Rich and his rake is available for considerable less!
Note: be careful, the shingles are brittle in this cold and you can do a lot of damage removing Ice. My buddy went up on his roof with a garden edger to break up the ice…big mistake!
PS: A guy in my office stuffed panty hose with salt and lobbed them onto his roof. Truth
Thanks Terry…..I am a lot less expensive….. but that is the family and friends discount….those i don’t like are double…
The salt in panty hose should be used in a position to melt a downward sloping pathway for water to reach the roof edge and drip away. this is a great technique, especially if you have an upper roof gutter/downspout that drains to a lower roof. but some roofs will be adversely effected by the salt presence.
Too bad about Cedar Brooke Cafe’s building. Its roof just gave away.
Here is a link to the WestportNow.com coverage of the Cedar Brook’s roof collapse: http://www.westportnow.com/index.php?/v2/comments/31924/
Probably not a good idea to have anybody get up on the roof these days. Way too much snow buildup and ice dams — would probably caused too much damage to make it worthwhile. Best let mother nature work. However, it would be a good idea to chop off those icicles, pretty as they are, they are just adding weight to your gutters and will eventually pull out if not attended to.
Bailiwick Roofing is an AWESOME contractor!
Google in Norwalk for number, tell Guy a happy customer sent you. He is really a great contractor. A+ BBB rating.
Crossroad Hardware was getting in a shipment of roof rakes last week…they may still have some left and you can grab a coffee and a donut at Coffee n’ next door to fortify yourself before the work….took me over 2 hrs to get my place partially clear…lets not discuss the dangers of going up on the roof vs hitting it from the ground with the rake.
In case Crossroad is out, I know the Rings End on rt 7 in Wilton had some as well, and theirs are from Canada where folks do this regularly.
Who knew? Never even heard of a Roof Rake before the weathermen started telling us to get them. BUT they do seem to work….the snow piles in front of my windows are approaching gargantuan sizes, over six feet thanks to the addition of the roof snow it pulled down.
My incredibly handy husband has spent several days 0ver the last couple of weeks on a ladder raking, chipping and shoveling (and swearing). I got in on the action a couple of times when he was out of town. I could barely move my arms afterward. It’s a relentless process. I’m sorry to say my husband is not for hire… too bad because we could probably retire on the $$ he could make if he did this for Westport residents through the rest of this crazy winter. I learned about “ice melt socks”, (panty hose filled with ice melting product that Terry B. referred to above). A friend of mine made them herself and apparently they worked very, very well. I believe she reads this blog, and if so, maybe she’ll chime in and post the photos of these very interesting looking socks. In the meantime, here is a link that includes instructions on how to make them.
http://www.ehow.com/how_7181249_make-ice-melt-sock.html
There are also a number of videos on YouTube that demonstrate how to make them and show the results. I understand that the ice melt product you use is important as the rock salt varieties apparently can damage gutters.
Hope this is helpful!
Overreaction.
Oddly enough, an out of town buddy of mine emailed me this morning to ask if I knew whether it was a good idea to knock down icicles. I’d been wondering about the same thing, but was speculating that leaving them where they are might be the most natural way to drain water from the roof in these extreme circumstances. Being curious, I Googled it and found a professional roofer’s opinion. Here’s the link:
http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/feb/16/don8217t-try-to-knock-down-icicles-from-/
They recommend that icicles be left in place unless they could fall and damage your car, air conditioning unit, or someone entering/exiting your house.
Though it won’t help now, other articles said that come spring, you might want to look into whether your attic is properly insulated and ventilated. If it is well insulated/ventilated, only small icicles will form. The giant ones will not.
Kim,
Thanks for the ice melt sock link. Panty hose are becomng as useful as duct tape! I wonder if you can lie them on top of the solid ice already in the gutters to melt them out. We have found that one strong teenager armed with an ice pick, attacking a gutter turns the gutter into a collander (sp?).
After the snow and ice are all gone, install some heating wires in vee’s near the edge of your shed or shallow-sloped roof and one down the center of your gutter. Plug in when the snow starts and keep the melt going till it’s gone.
Yes, you can place the filled panty hose on top of ice blocks. The website of This Old House recommends calcium citrate, which, when wet, seemed to burn my hands with cold, so wear gloves. The leaks in our family room were stopped within hours of place several of these hosiery boa-constrictors perpendicular to the frozen gutters. Tie them off with a long piece of twine to hang down, making for easy removal.
Oops, brain freeze! Calcium chloride, not citrate! Go to their website for the details:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/skill-builder/0,,211604,00.html