Shoveling Snow off Roof and Around Foundation

By Mark J. Donovan

With all the snow we’ve received in New Hampshire over the past month, I finally had no choice but to go up on the roof yesterday and remove the snow from much of it. There was 2 feet of heavy compressed snow on the roof, as well as 10 inch ice dams that needed to go, before either the roof collapsed or we had water coming into the house.

The only problem after shoveling the snow off of the roof was the fact that I had massive piles of snow to then shovel out from around the home’s foundation. My concern was that the snow that was all piled around my home’s foundation would someday begin to melt and end up seeping into my basement. I’ve never had a water problem in the basement however I’ve never seen so much snow at one time.

After shoveling snow off the roof I also placed ice melt socks every 5 to 6 feet along the roof edge where the ice dams were. Hopefully they will begin to do their work and melt drain channels into the ice dams. Otherwise I may end up seeing water dripping down the inside of my home’s exterior walls.