Home Ownership, Yay!

Most of the time home ownership is a wonderful thing. Most of the time...

Last night I was sitting on the couch reading a magazine and enjoying time with our new pup Max.  All of a sudden I heard a strange noise; it was water dripping between the main window and the storm window nearest me.  Dripping water is never a good sign.

I got out the ladder and climbed into the attic.  We had several spots where water was dripping down the nails holding the shingles in place.  We had ice dams that formed on the roof.  This did not make me happy as we had cleared off the first several feet of snow nearest the gutters to prevent ice dams from forming.  It didn't help.  The worst drip was over one of the bedrooms (you can see the water spot in the picture).  There was also another drip over the bathroom which didn't irritate me as much as we plan to gut this room shortly.

The problem is that our forced-air heating system runs through the attic and feeds vents that are in the ceilings.  I'm not quite sure why whomever installed it decided on this plan, but I can tell you that it was a bad choice.  Even with the heating ducts insulated, there is too much heat released to the attic.  This causes the snow closest to the shingles to melt and allows the water to collect at the edge where it is easily turned into an ice dam by the cold, night air.  All the subsequent melt runs down to this dam and then backs up under the shingles where it finds it way down the holes from the roofing nails.  Lucky us.

So Ross and I got out the ladder, the snow rake, a shovel, and a hammer and went to town on the ice and snow.  This all started to happen about the time Ross started cooking dinner which subsequently went straight to the refrigerator.  I know that time flies when you are having fun, but I can now attest that it also flies when you are not having fun too.  We finished exhausted at about one in the morning after breaking plenty of ice and having a couple of personal meltdowns ourselves.  I double checked the attic and all the drips had stopped.  We didn't get to bed until close to three (Ross actually finished our dinner which was mighty fine).  Our bodies ache and we are both plum tuckered out.  It was a most eventful first day home for Max.  He actually slept right through all the banging on the roof.   The cats on the other hand were not as thrilled.  I think they believe the admittance of a dog into our midst brought about the wrath of God.  All in all, it was not the way I hoped to spend my Saturday evening.  On the plus side, at least I got to spend it with Ross!