Why You Need Insulation

What is an ice dam?
An ice dam occurs in the winter when there are a lot of freeze/thaw cycles. The snow accumulates on the roof, then melts in the warmth of the day, and then freezes again at night. This creates a layer of ice to build on the eave lines of a roof. If your roofing system, gutter system, and insulation are all in order, an ice dam is unlikely to occur in the first place, and if it does occur, you should not have anything to worry about. The problems occur when these systems are not working properly.

When your roof gets an ice dam, this can lead to serious leaks around your eaves. Imagine a pool of water just sitting on your roof. That is essentially what an ice dam is, and the only way to remove the pool is to thaw out the ice. In the height of winter, removing the ice dam is dangerous as roofs covered in snow and ice are slippery. You also run the risk of damaging the roof itself when manually removing ice.

How do I prevent ice dams?
The best way to prevent an ice dam from happening in the first place is to have good insulation and properly maintained gutters. If your house is not well insulated, the heat escapes from your ceiling. This heat warms up the roof, hits the cold air of the outside, and freezes. If you have gutters that are clogged, the water pooled in your gutters also freezes and pushes out over the top of your gutters to form icicles. Lots of heavy ice weighs down your gutters and can cause them to break at seams, leading to even more potential damage.

Finally, if your roof is not ventilated properly, you may again be trapping hot air in your attic. The ideal scenario is to have cool air flow up from your soffit vents out the top of your roof through box vents or ridge vents. You don’t want anything blocking this flow, whether it is not enough vents or no baffles in the attic.

So what’s the solution to ice dams?
Number one, get your attic inspected to ensure you have enough insulation. The Indiana code requires a minimum of R-39, which is 13 inches of fresh cellulose insulation. The cellulose will settle over time, so if your insulation is older, it should measure about 11 inches.

You’ll also want to make sure the insulation is not matted down with animal activities or the passage of time. If you get up into your attic and can see your rafters poking up through your insulation, you need more. Rafters are only six inches tall on their side, so you are at about half the recommended thickness.

Indiana code, however, is the bare minimum, and other governing bodies, such as Energy Star and the International Code Council recommend R-49 to R-60 in Central and Northern Indiana. All this to say that if you’ve got under 11 inches of insulation in your attic, ice dams may be in your future.

If you have questions about your insulation and want to get a quote, Rojas Roofing is here to help! Call us today to schedule a free inspection. Don’t wait until the winter ice dams come.