Ice Dam & Roof Snow Removal in Reading, MA

If you're searching for ice dam removal or roof snow removal in Reading, MA (01867), here's how we handle it. Our shop is in Tewksbury, about 10 miles away with Wilmington in between, and we've replaced roofs in Reading. In winter we steam ice dams off and clear roof snow. In the off-season we do the attic, ventilation, and ice-barrier work that prevents the next one. This page covers what's specific to Reading houses. For the overview across our whole service area, see our ice dam and roof snow removal overview.

Where an Ice Dam Comes From

On a roof with a cold attic under it, snow sits until the weather melts it. When heat from the house gets into the attic, the snow melts from underneath instead. The water slides down to the overhang, meets a cold edge with nothing warm below it, and freezes. That ridge of ice grows every day, and the next melt backs up behind it and finds its way under the shingle laps. From there it soaks the decking and the insulation and comes out inside as a ceiling stain or water at a window trim. If that's already happening, our Reading roof repair crew takes care of the leak. Our ice dam cutaway walks through it one layer at a time.

Older Reading Homes and Their Attics

More than a quarter of Reading's homes were built before 1940, and the town hasn't built many new houses since 2000, so most roofs here sit on established homes. A house that age went up before attic insulation was standard. Whatever it has was put in later, around old framing, chimneys, and kneewalls, and the gaps it leaves are where heat gets into the roof deck.

An older roof can also hide things under the shingles: board sheathing instead of plywood, a second layer, or soft wood at the eaves where water has backed up in past winters. An ice dam on a roof like that does its damage out of sight, so we check the deck and the attic, not only the ice.

Reading Snow and the Roofs Under It

The state code puts Reading at a 50 psf ground snow load, the same as every town we serve, and a sound roof handles an ordinary winter. Reading has seen what a hard one can do. In February 2011, with police taking calls about roofs under snow, one Reading house's roof came down while its owners were outside checking it. The first thing they'd noticed was a sag. Nobody was hurt. Weight piles up where snow drifts into valleys and against walls, and where a dam at the eave adds ice to the same edge. If you see a sag or hear the roof creaking, call us. For a roof that's reached the end of its run, our Reading roof replacement page explains how we replace it. Our guide to how much snow a roof can hold covers the warning signs.

Ice Dams in the West Street Historic District

West Street is where today's Reading was first settled, and it's the town's local historic district. Steam removal changes nothing on the house. The Historic District Commission's guidelines also exempt gutters, downspouts, and ordinary maintenance and repair from review. Replacing a roof is a different matter: roofing needs a certificate from the Commission before the Building Inspector can issue the permit, and the guidelines ask for new roofing that matches the old in composition, color, size, shape, and texture where possible. After an application goes in, the Commission decides within 14 days whether it needs a hearing and holds any hearing within 45 days, so we plan a West Street re-roof around that clock.

How We Take an Ice Dam Off

Low-pressure steam, every time. It melts a drain channel through the dam down to the shingle surface, and the trapped water runs off through it. Nothing gets chipped, pried, or salted. Ice bonds to shingles, so a hammer or hatchet pulls granules and tabs off with it, and rock salt corrodes shingles, gutters, and flashing. Steam takes longer, and on an asphalt roof over an older Reading house it's the only way we'll do it.

Roof Snow Removal

If the snow is heavy or feeding the dam, we clear the eaves, valleys, and drifted sections with roof-safe tools, and we never drag a shovel across the shingles. The point is to take weight off and leave the next dam with less to work with.

Preventing the Next One

The fix for a repeat dam is off-season work. We check the attic insulation, look for warm air leaking up around chimneys and the attic hatch, and make sure the soffit vents aren't buried. A roof deck that stays evenly cold gives the snow no reason to melt from below.

Massachusetts requires an ice barrier at every eave, 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, and it goes on every roof we replace in Reading. Re-roofing in Reading takes a building permit, issued and posted at the house before work starts. We file it with the Building Division at Town Hall, 16 Lowell Street. Clear gutters help too; see our Reading gutters page for that side of it.