01-26-09, 07:43 AM | #11 |
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Good idea.
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01-27-09, 07:41 AM | #12 |
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Here are a few shots I took while driving home from work. Most were taken thru my dirty window while driving. The last one with the dark brown house has brown ice hanging under what's left of the eves, that's never a good sign. Most likely the meltwater backed up under the roof deck behind the icedam and rotted it away.
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01-27-09, 10:57 AM | #13 |
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That is insane. It boggles my mind why people let it get as bad as...well, any of them...but specifically number 4. I think if I had any of those homes I'd go and buy any kind of insulation and some caulking and go crazy up in my attic.
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01-27-09, 11:45 AM | #14 |
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I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who I talked to about helping them insulate their attic. The house was built in the early 30's and the attic has R-4 over shredded news paper. This last fall I tried talking her into increasing that to R-50-R-60 and she said no...it has insulation it will be fine. She called me up this morning and said that she and her husband decided that they will go rent a cellulose machine the first nice day we get and they want me to come help them.
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01-27-09, 12:13 PM | #15 |
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Haha, thats funny Binger. Good luck with the install, and at least they came around!
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01-28-09, 06:56 AM | #16 |
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I talked to my brother on the phone last night about this subject. He has a little house he is redoing (I still haven't been over to see it yet). He put a total of R-60 fiberglass insulation bats in his attic, and he says he is still getting some Ice damming . He was saying that the lack of ventilation in the attic is probably the cause. He couldn't maintain an air flow path from the soffit area for some reason, and I don't remember if he has a ridge vent or anything. The roof is on his list of things to be replaced, so he will fix this over summer.
So it sounds like it's possible one could have really good ventilation and fairly poor insulation and still not have ice problems?? Or the opposite like my brother is having. Apparently the ventilation needs to be there to let out even the small amounts of heat making it's way thru R-60. |
01-28-09, 07:26 AM | #17 |
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Yep, that sounds right jwxr7. The only thing that causes ice damming is heating the roof in some way to melt the snow. As it cools off again, the ice forms. So, an unventilated roof won't allow the roof to stay cold no matter how much insulation you have. An attic that has super ventilation will be able to remove even large amounts of heat without heating the roof itself.
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