Ice Dam and Roof Leak Water Damage in Blaine, MN
There is a ridge of ice a foot thick along the gutter on the north side of the house, and icicles down to the shrubs. Inside, the paint on the living room ceiling has a brown ring near the outside wall, and this morning the ring started to drip. The roof is eleven years old and has never leaked. This site puts you through by phone to an independent local provider who dries ice dam and roof leak water damage in Blaine and across Anoka County.
Finding how far the meltwater ran inside the wall
The crew goes into the attic first. Meltwater that backs up under the shingles soaks the insulation along the eave, runs down the top plate of the outside wall, and comes out wherever the drywall gives it a path: a ceiling seam, a window head, or the baseboard on the floor below. They pull the wet insulation, meter the ceiling drywall and the top of the wall, and follow the readings down the wall to the floor. On a two-story house they check the ceiling of the room below as well, because water inside an exterior wall keeps going.
An ice dam is usually a heat problem, not a shingle problem. Warm attic air melts the snow at the top of the roof, the water refreezes at the cold eave, and the pool behind the ice finds the nail holes.
Bucket under the drip, and stay off the roof
Put a bucket under the drip and pull the furniture back. Turn off the breaker for any light fixture the water is running through. Do not go up a ladder to chip the ice; a rake from the ground to pull snow off the bottom few feet of the roof is as far as a homeowner should go. Photograph the ceiling, the wall, the ice outside, and the attic if you can look in safely. Then call. The drying and the roof or attic work are separate trades, and the crew can tell you which one to call next.
What stays in the attic after an ice dam, and what comes down
Wet blown or batt insulation along the eave comes out; it does not dry in an attic. Ceiling drywall that sagged or split comes down; drywall with a stain and a near-dry reading stays and gets sealed later. Exterior wall insulation that reads wet leaves and the drywall in front of it with it. Framing dries in place. Hardwood under a window that took a season of drips may cup and gets metered before anyone decides. Then structural drying runs equipment in the attic and the rooms until the readings say the wall is done.
A leak that ran down an outside wall into a finished basement adds the basement to the scope, and that end of the job reads like a basement flooding cleanup. If the drip came from a bathroom above rather than the roof, tell the person who answers, because that is a plumbing source and a different first step.
Low roofs, deep snow, and the winter of 2022-23
Blaine's 1960s ramblers have low-pitched roofs, wide eaves, and attics that were insulated for 1965, and they make ice dams every winter the snow stays. The two-stories built since the 1990s in The Lakes, Club West, and The Sanctuary have steeper roofs, but they also have valleys over the garage and bathroom vents that dump warm air near the eave. The winter of 2022-23 put about 90 inches of snow on the Twin Cities, third most on record, and by February the eaves across the north metro carried ice a foot thick.
Summer roof leaks come from hail and wind. A storm that tears shingles on a July afternoon puts water on the attic insulation the same way an ice dam does, and the drying is the same job. A supply line in the attic or an upstairs wall that froze in the same cold snap is a frozen pipe cleanup.
Damage from an ice dam or a storm-damaged roof is often treated as sudden by homeowner policies, while a roof that leaked slowly for years may be handled differently. This site cannot read your policy. Have the crew photograph the attic and log the readings from the first visit.
Call about the ceiling that started to drip
Say which room the drip is in, whether the wall below it is wet, and whether there is ice on the eave outside. Mention if the water has reached the basement. Call (763) 297-2728.
