Dam Ice Dams

Somehow all of the snow has caused an ice dam on our roof. Fortunately the leak seems to be isolated to the garage. Kevin had to take down all the tubs from the top shelf and punch a hole into the soaking, soggy drywall to create a drain last night. This seems to be helping the water not to spread and cause more drywall damage, but there is still a fairly large wet spot.

This afternoon while drying clothes, I noticed a smell like burning lint. I immediately turned off our dryer and called Kev at work. He said that our dryer vents out to the same part of the roof that had all the snow, so perhaps the vent was being blocked.  I pulled all the clothes out of the dryer and hung them in the laundry room and our bathroom to finish drying. During the process, I tried to keep reminding myself that we were fortunate to have a home that could sustain damage, and clothes that required drip drying. But to be honest, I was a little frustrated at the situation.

When Kevin got home tonight, he climbed up on the roof (scaring me to death and prompting a LOT of praying on my part) to shovel the snow away from the area that he suspected was the source of the leak. Sure enough, he discovered an area that had melted, but then had re-frozen into a huge chunk of ice. This ice was blocking the melted snow from going down the roof to the downspout and the water was rising over the facia board and going into the garage. Hopefully the issue is fixed now, and fortunately Kevin is handy enough that he should be able to repair the drywall himself once everything dries out.