Ice Dam & Roof Snow Removal in Burlington, MA

If you need ice dam removal or roof snow removal in Burlington, MA, this is how we handle it here. We're in Tewksbury, two towns over past Billerica and Wilmington, about 10 miles and 15 to 20 minutes away, and we've completed roofing and siding jobs in Burlington. In winter we steam dams off and clear roof snow. Spring through fall is for the attic, ventilation, and ice-barrier work that stops them forming in the first place. For the full rundown across our service area, see our ice dam and roof snow removal overview.

How an Ice Dam Builds

It takes three things: snow on the roof, heat leaking into the attic, and a cold overhang at the bottom. The heat melts the snow from below, the water runs down to the eave, and the eave freezes it. A few days of that and there's a ridge of ice holding a pool of water on your roof. The water works back up under the shingles, into the decking and insulation, and comes through as a stain on the ceiling or a drip at a window. If it's already inside, our Burlington roof repair crew traces the leak and fixes it. The ice dam guide on our blog shows where the heat gets out.

A Route 128 Boom Town's Roofs

Burlington went from 3,250 people in 1950 to almost 22,000 in 1970, and between 1955 and 1965 it was the fastest-growing town in Massachusetts. You can see it in the housing. Census data puts the median Burlington home at 1972, the 1950s built nearly a quarter of the houses standing today, and about 55% went up between 1950 and 1979.

A plain gable roof can dam as badly as a complicated one. On a cape from those years, a finished upstairs puts warm rooms right against the roof deck, and an attic insulated to 1950s or 60s standards lets that heat through to the snow. A ranch with a low-slope addition or porch roof holds snow longer on the flatter section, so we check those first.

Winnmere, Havenville, and the Older Cottages

Some Burlington houses are older than the boom. The town's own open space plan says summer cottages went up in the Winnmere and Havenville section in the 1920s, and many became year-round homes during the Depression. A house built for summer and later lived in all winter usually got its insulation and venting a piece at a time, and the gaps between those pieces are where heat gets into the roof. We look at the attic and the deck before we assume anything.

Snow Load, and a Warning from 2015

Massachusetts code puts Burlington at a 50 psf ground snow load, which is the figure for every town we serve, and a well-built roof handles that. What strains a roof is snow drifted into valleys and against walls, packed down by rain, with ice building at the eave. In March 2015, after ice slid off a condominium roof in town onto a car, Burlington's fire chief asked residents, property managers, and business owners to clear snow and ice from their roofs, warning that rain on snow already packed onto rooftops makes for dangerous conditions. If your roof sags or groans, or you're not sure it's holding, call us. When the roof itself is worn out, our Burlington roof replacement page is the next stop. We wrote up what a Massachusetts roof is built to carry, and when to worry.

Meltwater, Downspouts, and Burlington's Brooks

Burlington sits at the headwaters of three watersheds, and the town's open space plan puts 7.5% of Burlington in 100-year flood zones, with Sawmill, Vine, Sandy, and Longmeadow Brooks named as the flood-prone areas. The same plan says cellars near them flood in heavy rain and wet seasons. Meltwater off a roof has to go somewhere. If your gutters are frozen solid or a downspout empties at the foundation, a thaw sends that water toward the basement, so we clear the gutters and check where every downspout lets out.

Steam Removal, Start to Finish

We cut a channel through the dam with low-pressure steam so the water behind it drains, and we leave the shingles alone. No hatchets, no pressure washers, no rock salt. Ice is frozen to the shingle surface, so anything that breaks it loose takes granules and tabs with it, and salt corrodes shingles, gutters, and fasteners. Steam is slower, and it's the method we use on every asphalt roof.

Roof Snow Removal

When the load is heavy or the snow is feeding a dam, we take it off the eaves, valleys, and drifts with roof-safe tools, leaving a thin layer so nothing scrapes the shingles. Whatever we pull off the lower roof is water that can't feed the next dam.

Keeping the Next One Away

The lasting fix is off-season work. On a 1950s or 60s Burlington house we start with the attic: whether there's enough insulation, where house air is getting in around pipes, wires, and the hatch, and whether outside air can flow in at the soffits and out at the ridge. Massachusetts requires an ice barrier at every eave, ice-and-water shield from the edge to at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, or 36 inches along the slope on roofs pitched 8:12 or steeper.

Burlington's permit application lists roofing among the work that needs a permit before it starts. If an ice-damaged roof needs replacing, we pull that permit through the Building Department at 25 Center Street (781-270-1615) and put the ice barrier back first. For the gutter side, see our Burlington gutters page.