Frozen Gutters Water In House

With all the snow we ve had the gutters on my house have frozen solid so much that there is now a dam of ice going up over the first row of tiles.

Frozen gutters water in house. I noticed water dripping in around the back door and through one of the air vents in the window. The worst thing that can happen is for the melting ice to find its way into your house. The second worst thing that can happen is that the ice in the backed up gutter gets heavy enough to tear the gutter off the house. Sometimes gutters do freeze up completely and people worry they are going to pull away from the house or cause a huge ice dam.

An ice dam is a wall of ice that forms at the edge of the roof usually at the gutters or soffit. Chipping away at ice is dangerous destructive and futile. This way if water collects on the edge of the roof it won t find its way through the waterproofing. Consistently frozen downspouts require immediate attention.

This pool of water can leak into your home and cause damage to walls ceilings insulation and other areas. When it forms the water then backs up behind the ice dam and creates a pool of water. Though the results are guaranteed the cost can run you several hundred dollars and if any residual water stays inside your gutters it could refreeze. First resist the urge to go after the ice with a hammer or axe.

Unfortunately dealing with frozen gutters is rarely simple or inexpensive. The only sure fire way to melt the ice in frozen gutters is to hire a professional. To prevent water in your house your roof should be installed with a sheet of rubber under it. On inpsection in the eaves i can see ice on the internal wall and water is starting to spread.

You can also install mesh screens over your gutters that catch leaves and other debris from falling inside. So they try to chip out the ice themselves. This can lead to your gutter and downspout tearing away from your roof or siding leading to more costly and larger problems such as water leaks and improper drainage. If you have a steeply pitched roof the water may be traveling so fast it splashed over the gutter.

When winter storms hit gutters and downspouts sometimes freeze into solid blocks of ice and homeowners understandably worry about gutters pulling away from the roofs or ice dams forming. You can install an l shaped splashed guard to prevent the overrun during a storm.