Sheila writes from Ottawa : Hi there. I will try to make this as easy as I can however, it may not be.I purchased a brand new home from a very reputable builder in 1999 and took possession in December of that same year. December led into January and towards the end of January I began to experienc...
Ventilation in a Canadian attic does very little to remove moisture when the temperature in the attic is below freezing. During that time, the moisture is in the form of Ice and the passing air simply won't remove it -- whether you have passive vents or power vents. When things warm up, if the ...
Ice Dams are a serious problem throughout Canada, although it varies from year to year as to which region gets hit. Here we visited one of the solution companies who work to seal up the primary cause of ice dams, the warm air leaks into the attic. For more background on the problem check out th...
Sol, from Sudbury, Ontario, has terrible ice dams, as you can see in the photo. They are directly over his bay window. Take a good look at the house design. The bay window comes right out to the edge of the roof, preventing any possibility of any ventilation up over this area. In addition, be...
George from Fort Frances, Ontario has a problem of snow melting off of his new addition. He is trying to pin down the problem because this causes ice formation on the edge of the roof.He had a ridge vent installed, but never checked to see if his soffit vents worked. A ridge vent, without goo...
Ice Dams are created when heat from the house gets into the attic and manages to melt the bottom of the snow pack. This melt water flows down to the edge of the roof where it is now freezing cold and you get ice dams or ice cycles. Ice dams back water up behind them and this finds it way under ...
Ray from Woodstock, Ontario writes:For 20 years we had no ice problems on the roof. Heating was radiant heating in the ceiling. Then we installed a forced air furnace. The contractor ran all the ducts through the attic and we have had terrible ice dams ever since. The contractor refused to...
Recent research from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has pointed out new priorities for solving ice dam problems. Common practice for years has been to address ice dams with more ventilation. It was when this practice wasn?t working very well that the researchers took a closer look a...
Nancy in Manitoba has bad ice dams on her roof. She sent me a great sketch of her whole attic arrangement, complete with knee walls and cathedral ceilings, not to mention a dormer -- and there is no ventilation in the roof in front of the dormer.The guidelines for eliminating ice dams are sim...
One viewer has recommended using Urea fertilizer to melt ice on the roof rather than using salt-based de-icers.Actually, the research done, during the famous 1998 Eastern ice storm, confirms this idea. The salt will discolour the shingles and rust the gutters and generally not be good for eith...
