The roof of your home protects you and your family from the wonders of a winter season. However, important details concerning your roof can sometimes be forgotten. Here are some interesting facts to test your overall knowledge about your roof!
Metal roofs provide great protection. Metal roofs were designed to shed snow pack. Hence, if your roof pitch is steep enough, you will experience a winter season with little or no snowpack on your roof! The issue can be what is below your roof edge. Driveways, patio decks, and walkways do not need a pile of snow pack to fall on them. Low pitched metal roofs are not able to shed snow pack as readily. This gives snow pack the chance to create snow melt water which can re-freeze on a roof edge causing hazardous roof ice dams and icicles.
Shingle roofs provide great protection too. Contrary to metal roofs, shingled roofs cannot shed snowpack as readily. This offers more inherent protection to patio decks, walkways, and driveways below a shingled roof edge! The downside is that snowpack left on a roof deck has time to create snow melt water as a result of ambient temperature changes and heat loss. When snow melt water has chance of re-freezing, ice dams and icicles will develop in a freeze and thaw zone.
Your roof can warm H20. Metal roofs can serve a double duty and be used to heat water for a bath or for swimming.
Leaks difficult to detect source. Water leaks are the result of manual snow pack and ice removal methods (shovels, piks, etc.) or pooled snow melt water that always seeks the path of least resistance. That path is often into a home or business. Identifying the source of a leak on a roof deck can be a very difficult undertaking. Where leaks are visible from inside a home or business the source of the leak can be up to 20 feet away!
Roof life can be reach maximum with preventative measures. Although snowpack and ice on a roof deck can appear harmless, hazardous ice dams and icicles are very destruction to any roof structure. Ice build-up or ice dams typically begin on roof edges where snow melt water has the highest change of re-freezing. After all, the edge is the coldest spot regardless of overhangs, eave distances, etc. Once ice forms, the cycle repeats itself until a wall of ice forms. That wall of ice will prevent snow melt water from reaching the roof edge and pooled snow melt water is the result. Pooled water will get beneath shingles reducing the life of a shingled roof.
Pile it on. When a roof is being replaced, you may not need to remove the old roofing materials. Sometimes, new roofing material can be placed directly on top of the existing roofing materials, provided there’s enough support for the weight.
When it’s time to add a low-cost, high-performance roof ice melt system to your home or business, we invite you to call HotEdge, the leading ice dam company today at 800-411-3296, or get a quote.
