After the relentless Snowzilla #1 through #4 even a well insulated house is going to have an ice dam. Ice freezes along the roof line and now any water percolating under the snow gets trapped and backs up under the shingles into your house leaking into that lovely ceiling fan. Turning the fan on high is a fun way to humidify your house but eventually you will burn your house down with an electrical short.
Solution: Roof Sausage and we’re not talking Ambie’s. My favorite looks like Karl’s Sausage Kitchen bratwurst. Take a spare pair of pantyhose and cut the leg off. Fill the leg with calcium chloride (that is the Snow Melt you are throwing on the walkway). If your ice dam is up high, tie a line to the end and toss it up there so it crosses the ice dam.
Done! Like a little beaver’s nightmare that sausage will cut across the ice dam and make a path for the water to drain.
Because we live on Cape Ann you know that one of these storms will eventually arrive and dump four inches of rain and you really don’t want the inside of your house to look like a tropical rain forest.
Rubber Duck Pro Tip: You can buy “roof pucks” to do this but stuffing socks and pantyhose is so much more fun. Go buy the big 50 lb bag of rock salt at Ace or Building Center then pour it into that 5 gallon bucket you have kicking around. Drop a mason jar on top and stick it on your front porch. Now you can fill a sock and toss or sprinkle some on that icy walkway. When you fill the bucket from a 50 lb bag, about two shovel fulls will not fit. Just catapult that up on your roof.
The wrong way: Do not use organic, non-gluten, non-GMO, non-fluoride Kosher Pink Gourmet Himalayan rock salt. Well, you can but only buy Rubber Duck brand, $35 a pound with 81 essential minerals. Call now. Also, send in your roof sausage photos to Joey. Extra points if you tie a Rubber Duck on the sausage.
Good Morning Gloucester 
Putting the science to work for you and excellent ingredients for success – melting away! Well done Paul! 🙂 Dave
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