Ice Dams Forming on Your Roof?

The difference is almost always in the attic. Homes with better air sealing around ceiling penetrations (pot lights, bathroom fans, attic hatches) and adequate insulation lose less heat into the attic space, keeping the roof deck closer to the outdoor temperature. If your neighbours’ roofs stay uniformly snow-covered while yours clears from the top down, that uneven melt pattern is a direct sign heat is escaping your attic faster than theirs.

Adding insulation helps, but it’s not the complete answer on its own. If warm air is still leaking through gaps in the ceiling air barrier (around pot lights, plumbing penetrations, and attic hatches), it’ll bypass the new insulation and still warm the deck. The correct sequence is: air-seal all ceiling penetrations first, then add insulation to the appropriate R-value, then verify that soffit and ridge ventilation is balanced. Skipping the air sealing step means the new insulation works much less effectively.

Heating cables create a melt channel through the ice dam so water can drain, but they don’t stop the dam from forming. The moisture is still cycling through your roof structure, your insulation is still getting wet, and the decking is still experiencing freeze-thaw stress. On top of that, you’re adding a permanent energy cost to run the cables. We understand the appeal of a quick fix, but in our experience, homeowners who use heating cables as a long-term solution end up with more expensive structural repairs within a few years.

It’s one of the single biggest contributors to attic moisture we see in Alberta homes. A bathroom fan exhausting into the attic pumps warm, humid air directly into the roof structure every time someone showers. In a cold Alberta winter, that moisture condenses on the cold decking, freezes, and then melts in a thaw, soaking the insulation and wood repeatedly. It’s a building code violation, and correcting it (rerouting the duct to terminate through the roof or sidewall) is one of the highest- impact fixes in a home performance assessment.

Snow removal with a roof rake reduces the volume of meltwater being produced and can help in the short term, but it doesn’t address the ice that’s already formed at the eave. Professional ice dam removal uses low-pressure steam to safely melt the ice ridge without damaging shingles or underlayment. Mechanical removal (chipping, cutting) is faster but risks shingle damage and potentially introduces new leak points, which is why we don’t use that approach.

Not necessarily. If the ice dam cycles haven’t caused significant moisture damage to the decking or underlayment, fixing the attic system is often all that’s needed. Our inspection will tell you whether the roofing materials are still sound or whether the repeated wet-dry cycles have compromised them. We’ll give you an honest answer, and we won’t recommend a new roof if the existing one doesn’t need it.