ice dams

[chrisasst]

the year of the ice dams...
I have deep ones right above my kitchen and mud room. Right between those rooms and the roof I have a small attic type space. My ceilings are starting to leak. Would it be good or bad if I put a 50,000 btu forced air heater in this attic space to heat up the roof in hopes for the ice to melt and slide off the roof?

 

[peakbagger]

Its probably going to make things worse unless you can get the heat all the way into the overhangs. The attic space is already hotter than the outdoors which is causing the snow to melt on the roof and run down until it hits the ovehangs which are colder than the house. Unless some one has blocked the air flow from the soffits up to the attic and you can unblock it, about all you can do now is remove the snow from the roof, and use the various methods discussed in the prior ice dam thread to melt channels for the water to flow down the overhangs. Long ago I bought a house that someone has stuffed insulation in the space between the top of the exterior walls and the roof, it was late in the season before I discovered it and ice dams has already started. I ended up spending a couple of days with a long wooden pole with a big hook on it pulling the insulation out and sliding proper vents in thses spaces. The ice damming problems got a lot less and subsequentyy I laid an extra 6" of insulation on top of the attic insulation which helped even more (note, this doesnt do much unless you open up the air flow from the soffits).