Roof cleaning companies in Massachusetts are working overtime to remove ice dams from homes, several days after the biggest snowstorm here in nearly four years.
What is an ice dam?
Ice dams are caused by the warming and freezing cycles of snow on a roof. That snow starts to melt; the water freezes again and causes a dam.
“When it melts, the water comes down, has nowhere to go and kind of creates a little bit of a dam and then the water works its way up your roof, which is what you don’t want,” said DJ Warila of Green Monster Roof Cleaning, which services central Massachusetts.
“We’ve seen it come inside people’s homes, down their ceilings. You can’t really see exactly the damage it’s causing until you open it up. A lot of times, you’ll see the soffit leaking icicles, which means the water’s getting in the house. Oftentimes, skylights will get damaged or dormers where there’s any type of seam in the roof. It can just get in and cause water inside the house.”…