Ice Dam Removal & Prevention in Exeter, RI

We keep Exeter ice dams from pushing water into old walls and sills

Exeter is open country with long winters. Between the fields along Route 102 and the woods toward Arcadia and Yawgoo Valley, homes sit far apart with little to break the wind. Snow blows across open ground and piles onto roofs, then sits there in the cold that settles over inland Washington County. A roof that stays covered that long gives the sun and the attic plenty of chances to melt snow that refreezes at the edge.

Many older Exeter houses are farmhouses that grew in pieces: a main house, an ell, a shed roof over a kitchen, maybe an enclosed porch. Where those roofs join, snow collects in the corners, and the lower, flatter sections drain slowly. Older attics with little insulation let heat melt the snow from below. When the water hits ice at the eave, it backs up under the shingles and runs down inside the wall.

Removal is handwork. We cut channels through the ice, carefully, so the backed-up water can drain into the gutters and away from the house, and the shingles and gutters come through it in good shape. Then we look at prevention for the spots that dam every winter, like heat cables at the roof junctions and on the low-slope sections. Photos of the roof edge are often enough for a quote, and we reply the same business day.