Ice Dam & Roof Snow Removal in Dracut, MA

Our shop is in Tewksbury, a short drive up Route 38 through Lowell to Dracut. We've done roofing and siding work in Dracut, and when it comes to ice dams, most of the town's houses fall into two groups: the boom years and the older homes. Each gets its own section here. For the full rundown across every town we serve, see our ice dam & snow removal overview.

A Building Boom That Came Later

Census data puts the median Dracut home at a year built of 1975. The town's population went from 8,666 in 1950 to 18,214 in 1970, and the building kept going after that: the 1980s were Dracut's biggest single decade, with about one in five of today's homes, and roughly half the town went up between 1960 and 1989. Those houses were insulated to the standards of their day, which called for a lot less attic insulation than Massachusetts asks for now. Unless someone has added to it, that thinner attic lets heat into the roof deck, and the warm deck melts the snow that becomes the dam.

Older Dracut Houses

Not every Dracut house came out of the boom. About 27% were built before 1960, and about one in nine before 1940. A house that age went up before modern attic insulation and roof venting, and whatever has been added since might have gone in a piece at a time. The gaps between those pieces are where heat gets into the roof, so that's where we look first.

How An Ice Dam Gets Inside

The snow over a warm attic melts and runs down the roof. At the overhang there's no heat underneath, so the water freezes, and each thaw stacks another layer onto the ridge of ice at the edge. Water pools behind it with nowhere to drain. Shingles overlap to shed water running downhill, so a pool sitting against them seeps backward past the overlaps and fasteners, soaks the decking and the attic insulation, and turns up as a ceiling stain or a wet wall, often well away from the dam. If that's already happened, start with our roof repair in Dracut page, which covers finding and fixing the leak. Our ice dam cutaway walks through it one layer at a time.

Snow Load On Dracut Roofs

Under the Massachusetts building code, Dracut's ground snow load is 50 pounds per square foot, the same figure as Tewksbury and every other town we serve. In the January 2015 blizzard, a Dracut resident reported more than 33 inches to the National Weather Service. A well-framed roof handles a normal winter, and the risk is a stretch of storm, thaw, and storm again that drifts snow into the valleys and turns the lower edge to ice. If the roof starts to sag or creak, or upstairs doors and windows begin sticking, call us. When the roof itself is worn out, our roof replacement in Dracut page is the place to start. For the signs a roof is struggling, see how much snow is too much for a roof.

Clearing The Dam With Steam

Low-pressure steam melts a clean channel through the ice to the shingle surface, and the water behind the dam drains through it. The shingles keep their granules and nothing gets chipped. A hatchet or a bag of rock salt does real damage, and it shows up in spring. It's the slow way to clear a dam, and it's the only way we'll treat an asphalt roof.

Getting The Snow Off

When the snow is heavy or keeps feeding the dam, we clear the eaves, the valleys, and the drifted spots with tools made for working on shingles. We take it down to two or three inches and stop there. That's also what the state's Department of Public Safety tells homeowners, because scraping down to the asphalt risks damaging the shingles.

Keeping It From Coming Back

The fix for next winter is a warm-weather job. On a 1970s or 80s Dracut house, the first stop is the attic. We measure the insulation, check whether the bathroom fans vent outside or into the attic, and look for a clear air path from the soffit vents up to the ridge. Gutters matter as well, because a packed or sagging gutter holds water right where the dam forms. For the gutter side, see our seamless gutters in Dracut page.

Under Massachusetts code, every eave needs an ice barrier: ice-and-water shield running from the edge to a point at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, or 36 inches up the slope when the roof is pitched 8:12 or steeper. We put it on every roof we install. When an old roof is past saving after an ice dam, we file the re-roof permit with the Building Department at Dracut Town Hall before any work starts.