We've had very little precipitation for the last couple of weeks, coupled with temperatures that stay mostly below freezing back in our part of the valley. Mostly. Unfortunately, we have been seeing a couple of hours almost every day where the temperature does creep into the thaw zone. This is unfortunate because it means we have ice.
Snow I can handle, it's the ice I have trouble with. I spent nearly an hour breaking up the inch of ice on the front porch today, and sprinkled gravel on the worst parts of the walkways. Did the same thing last week. Our two entry corridors to the front door each follow under an eave of the roof, and with the gutters full of ice any water that comes off the roof drops directly onto the walkways and porch. We've recognized the problem since we first moved in but it's always been a secondary priority, at least until now.
It's the ice dam on the roof that's pushing the eave issue front and center. Snow and ice melt slowly from our roof, even slower on the bottom edges which do not get any warming from the house envelope. As a result water tends to collect just uphill from the dam on the roof, water looking for a way to oblige the pull of gravity. The weight of the water is enough to push past the gaps in the shingles down to the tar paper underneath, then to the nail holes left by the shingle nails (which in a thirty-five year old house have enough space to channel water).
Where this is happening under the eaves (as in this picture) it isn't a big problem. That threshold is crossed as the water level on the roof rises and water starts coming in above the structure itself. I have one such water leak right now, or did until I put in a deflector to draw water out beyond the exterior wall. I saw this last winter too, in a different location. I see evidence of this kind of leakage on three of our roof surfaces.
SO...
I guess we'll be reroofing the house during the remodel. We'll get rid of the water leaks, the whole roof will match, we'll extend the eaves out over the front walkway, and we'll be able take out the furnace chimney (we might put a skylight in in its place).
And we'll be doing our part to put money into the economy!
