Wear gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals and throw small handfuls of the deicer onto the roof so it can start melting the snow.
Throw ice melt on roof.
But if you ve let your ice dam fester for so long that you can t even get a credible ice dam company to help you because they re booked solid salt may help you emerge from your diy ice dam removal adventure as unscathed as possible.
There truly is no wrong way to do this.
In this video master electrician for ask this old house scott caron helps a homeowner install heat cables on his roof to stop ice dams.
The tablets help prevent roof damage by melting through ice dams and allowing water to drain safely.
They work effectively in temperatures down to 25 degree fahrenheit.
The roof melt tabs melt through the ice to the roof and then drains under the ice instead of backing up into the attic.
Reapply the tablets as needed.
2 a bucket bag of calcium chloride ice melt.
Try to cover your roof in an even layer of the deicer.
Instead fill old pantyhose with the calcium chloride and lay it across the dam.
Clip in the cable along the same zigzag pattern as the shingle clips.
An ice dam can easily be made of hundreds of gallons of water so melting it all requires a lot of salt.
This is a great way to get the water flowing if you have ice buildup.
Next go up on the roof and put ice melt socks vertically one end onto the gutter and the other end up the roof slopes spacing them every 3 feet.
Purchase the salt you d use to melt ice on a sidewalk or driveway from a local hardware or big box store.
These melted the ice dam from below allowing water to drain off the roof.
Again for the most part you don t want to throw any type of ice melt product on your roof.
Wrap on roof and gutter cable ice and snow melt part 1.
Wrap on roof and gutter cable ice and snow melt part 1.
The picture below is the ice dam that fell off my roof after melting from below.
The 60 count roof melt tablet designed to prevent damage to roofs from ice dams made from calcium chloride easy to use simply toss a roof melt tablet on the roof let it do the work no ladders or extension equipment needed proven reliable inexpensive products toss 1 tablet on every sqft of problem area begins working the hour after applied to problem area no long term adverse.
This will melt a channel to allow water to safely run off your roof and break up the dam for manual removal.
Cut the leg part off the stockings and fill them up with 2 3 pounds of ice melt and tie the ends.
Secure shingle clips to roof shingles using a flathead screwdriver making sure to align them in a zigzag pattern.
I ordered extra to have on hand for the future.