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Hi again Steve from GoldEye Home Inspection here and I am continuing the discussion
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that I started in previous video on ice dams. So we talked about the causes of
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ice dams. Basically warm air on the upper part of the roof that's heating the roof up and
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melting the snow. The water starts flowing down and it hits the cool area down
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below and refreezes. This builds up over time and forms this ice dam that can damage
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your roof, drip down into your attic and damage your insulation and the
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roofing structure and all the way down into the house and cause damage to the house.
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So the message for that was keep the Attic cool and you can reduce the chance of an
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ice dam forming. So how do we keep the Attic cool. So this is what we're going
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to talk about today. Basically there's three parts to this that you
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need to do. First is stop warm air from leaking up into the attic from the house.
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There's a number of places where you can have penetrations through the roof or
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even through the walls where the wall itself has a pipe or something going up
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in inside of it up into the roof and air can flow up through the wall. But look
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for things like your your exhaust fans from bathrooms and kitchens. I can't
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count the number of times I've been in the Attic and I've seen the ducting from
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an exhaust fan that is supposed to go either up through the roof and exhaust
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out or off to the side. Instead it's disconnected and all that warm moist air
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from the bathroom or kitchen is blowing into the Attic and so that warms up the
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attic and of course the snow starts melting. Another thing you can do if all
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the penetrations of sealed properly is insulate. Warmth
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from the house is just going to naturally rise and warm up the Attic. So
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the better your insulation is the less chance the heat will go up into the
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attic and start the snow melting on the roof. Following up from that the third
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item is ventilation. In this area underneath the overhang is called the
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soffits there are there are or can be or should be vents that allow cool air up
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into the attic and then you'll have roof vents higher up on the attic. It
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allows air to flow up through and flush out all that warm moist air that has built
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up or you know from this at the Sun heating the roof, keeping the the
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attic and the underside of the of the roof cool. Now I'll just mention something. If
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you put in insulation often what happens if those soffit vents at the edge get
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blocked, the air flow up into the attic can't happen. So good installers of
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insulation will put baffles that will prevent the insulation from going right
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to the edge it doesn't need to because that channel can be can be left cool so
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you don't need insulation there. That just allows a path for the air to flow
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up into the Attic and flush out the attic. So let's say you've got an ice dam
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now you're not going to change the ventilation or the insulation or do all
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that air sealing in the middle of winter. So what do you do? How do you fix it
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right now? Well the easiest thing you can do is
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remove the snow. I mean it's not an easy thing but there are people who will for
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a price obviously come to your house and clear the snow off or you can do it
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yourself. Be careful with that because you've got shingles there that in the
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cool weather a little brittle. You can damage them and that'll shorten
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the length of the lifespan of your of your roofing. So you want to avoid if
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possible doing any damage there. Now the ice itself... I would strongly..Please don't
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do this. When I was about 14 years old or so my father had me up on the roof of
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our two-story house with one foot in the gutter and hanging on to the edge of the
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gable end of the house chopping away at the ice with an axe. I would not let
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anyone do that. There was deep snow below but I still didn't like my chances if I
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fallen. So be very careful with that and also be very careful if you're swinging
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an axe at ice there's also a good chance you'll damage the roof. So be very careful
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with that. Some companies will use steam and just melt the snow and the ice that
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way.So you can hire someone to do that or if you have a steam device... again
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just be very careful with it. Finally there's a method that I've seen a number
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of places where you can put a salt, calcium chloride.. or yeah, calcium
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chloride in pantyhose and you lay it down and it will melt the ice. You
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actually lay it down vertically so that it creates a channel through the ice
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that will allow the water to flow down and and drip off the edge
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or get into the gutters. Hopefully they're clean enough as I mentioned in
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the last video, ... I believe, I hope I mentioned it. Keep your Eavestroughs clean
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in fall so that that water can flow away. You've got to have a path for that
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water to flow away. So if you create this channel with one of these pantyhose
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it'll go down into the eaves trough down your downspout and away. Finally you
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know, a couple of these things I've mentioned...
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hire a Pro if you're not comfortable going up on a roof. There's
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not a lot you're gonna do yourself from down below so hire somebody to do it. Be
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safe, do it properly, hopefully they'll be
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professional and not damage your roof. So this has been our discussion on ice dams.
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If you have any questions please contact me I'm always open to answer questions
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if you need more research on something I'd love to do that. If you have any
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comments on this video or any of the other other videos that we'll be
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producing, or have produced, please, by all means drop it in the comments send us an
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email or contact us on our contact form at goldeyehi.ca that's g o l d e y e h i . c a
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on the Internet. Steve from GoldEye Home Inspection and
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this is our discussion on ice dams.