177: No Magic Fix for an Old House Roof

Audio Transcript

Audio Transcript 
0:02
I'm Stacy Grinsfelder, and you're listening to True Tales From Old Houses, the side porch, the portico, the coffee conversations.
We're still work shopping the brand over here.
Hello everyone, and truly thank you.

0:20
Thank you, thank you for all of the submissions to rename this Minisode that has never once been mini.
There are some good ones.
I've taken notes, and I do have some opinions, which we will absolutely talk about at the end of the show.
But first, I do have ice dams on my mind.
I know, I'm sorry.

0:38
I think most of us are ready for spring projects, open windows, and not thinking about ice anymore, especially those of you who just got hammered by a Blizzard.
But I've been digging into some possible fixes for our ice dam situation, and I thought I would bring you up to speed.
Before I launch into all of that, I want to take a moment to thank the sponsors who support this show: Sutherland Welles, Brouns and Co., Linseed Oil Paint, Heritage Supply Co., and the Old House Shop.

1:03
These are businesses that I genuinely respect, and their support keeps the podcast going.
So if you've been eyeing anything from them, check the show notes for the coupon codes.
They're there for a reason.
And if you ever have questions about the products, like finishes, the paint, the tools, what I use and why, send them.

1:20
I'm more than happy to talk through why I choose what I choose, why I use what I use.
Nice little rhyme there.
OK, now ice dams, ice stems are not new here.
I talked a little bit about them last week, but this was the first winter since 2015 that they crossed back into the this is damage category.

1:41
So Andy and I asked ourselves, you know, are we going to keep managing this, or are we going to actually fix it?
Either way, it is a hit to our budget.
And if we're going to spend money, I'd like to at least overthink it.
And why not overthink it with you?
So let's be clear about why we're even considering putting real money into this problem.

2:02
We had those awful ice dams in 2015.
That's something I talked about again.
I mentioned last week that year was a destructive year.
It forced our hand.
And then the following summer, we replaced the roof.
I showed some pictures of those ice dams on the Substack newsletter last week.

2:18
If you missed those, go back and look.
It's pretty awful, pretty terrible stuff.
But since then, every winter we have had icicles.
That's just a thing we have.
We've had the ice built U along the roof edges.
That part has never gone away, but most years it just kind of stays in the monitor and manage it category.

2:40
However, for the past several winters, we've also had a consistent leak over the big front door.
Not catastrophic, not water pouring in, but enough that we know it's there.
I would like to note that, based on the condition of the door and the surrounding trim when we moved in, like 12 years ago, this is not a new issue.

3:01
And I'm going to try to say this very gently.
This house has probably been dealing with some version of this leak for years, and it was ignored for the most part.
I guess that's that's what I'm, but that's what I'm going to say.
It was ignored for the most part because when we moved in the door, which is giant, it's probably 8 foot tall and close to 5 foot wide, It was mostly inoperable.

3:26
All the cracks and things were stuffed with newspaper, and it took me about four summers, maybe longer, to get that door to open and close and lock properly.
And it's still warped from the past damage, but at least now it functions.

3:41
There's still a little air leakage around the lock, but you know, it functions.
Zooming forward again, you know, last summer I replaced roughly 220 linear feet of gutter because in February of 2025, we did have ice heavy enough to bend the gutters and pull a section away from the house.

4:01
And then I thought, well, I'm going to re-pitch this other section at the same time so that all of the drainage flows into the downspouts and away from the house.
And I felt great because all summer long, all that rainfall finally, for the first time, flowed away from the house.

4:18
It was excellent.
Short-lived, short-lived happiness.
Then, of course, I installed the roof cables.
I feel like I'm just repeating myself here.
I'm sorry.
I'm always afraid somebody's going to come into an episode and be like, this is the first time I've ever heard this show, and I have no idea what she's talking about.

4:34
So I feel the need to, you know, at least give some back story.
So that's why I'm here again.
But anyway, I installed those heat cables.
I'll try to make it short.
I've been eyeing heat cables for some time.
They seem like a really good idea because one, I thought they would help prevent that ice buildup at the edges, and two, I could manage them from far away.

4:54
Long story short, I rented a lift, installed the heat cables, and then I invested in some of those thermostat cords that automatically turn on and off based on the outside temperatures.
And then my house sitters and I discussed how to manage all of that further based on the weather.
So that's what I meant, really, by managing from afar.

5:12
But then none of that worked.
We lost the brand new gutters.
We lost the heat cables.
We lost the rental lift money. That was about $5000 of effort materials just gone.
And when you stack that on top of the ongoing front door leak, the occasional drips elsewhere, and the fact that we've decided to stay in Blake Hill House for now, I guess that's when it stopped being a seasonal nuisance and started feeling like a systems issue that deserved a closer look.

5:37
And maybe more of our money.
I've been thinking about the issue in more than one way.
Removing the lower 4 feet or so of snow from the roof edge is one of the most effective ways to prevent ice dams.
If you clear the snow, you prevent the ice buildup.
That just makes sense.

5:52
That's something that I have known.
I even own a roof rake.
It's in the outdoor workshop.
I've tried to use it many times.
It is extremely long.
The issue for me is not whether roof raking works.
The issue is scale.
Our roof is 22 feet high.

6:09
I am not tall, and roof Rakes are heavy.
Wet snow is heavier.
I can't even wrestle that roof rake over my head, much less maneuvered into the proper angle, pull off all that snow.
One side of the house is also really close to the power line.

6:24
So I'm always worried that I'm going to lose control of that roof rake, and then that metal pole is going to fall into the power line.
And then, you know, I'll electrocute myself.
I am a bit of a worrywart at times, I admit this. Last week, I did have a listener in Minnesota, and she told me that they actually have roof raking services there.

6:42
You can call someone, they show up, they clear the lower edge of the roof before the ice dam forms.
An absolutely brilliant idea.
I tried to find one in my area, thinking, " Gosh, that'd be great, but they do not seem to exist here.
The only thing that I found, and I already knew this about roofing companies from 2015, the year that goes down in history for me, there are other companies that will come.

7:05
They're roofing companies, and in the winter, they'll come out once the ice dams are already there, and they'll steam them off, or they'll chop them apart, often for thousands of dollars.
I've heard people quoted thousands of dollars, and occasionally, there's some collateral damage to the shingles in the process.

7:21
But I did not find, like I said, any roof raking services, which is very disappointing.
Also, western New Yorkers take notes.
That is a business opportunity in the making right there.
If you start with one town, you could hire some additional people, expand, and build a roof raking empire.

7:41
So there you go.
It's not going to be me, but business idea for you.
Moving on from low-tech options, Andy and I agree to start looking into insulating the attic.
I guess technically that's kind of low-tech, but it's very expensive.
And you know what?
This is also convoluted because this is actually the second time that we've done this as well.

7:59
I never talked about this on the show or on the blog, but about 10 years ago, I'm going to take roughly 30 seconds a minute to tell you this.
I did get a couple of estimates on insulation.
They wanted to blow insulation into the walls, spray foam the attic, and fill the soffits with something.

8:15
I can't even remember now, but I do remember that it was around $40,000 at that time. 10 years ago, $40,000 and not even knowing what I know now, I felt like that was a really bad idea.
We had some mice and chipmunks in the wall then, and I didn't think we needed to make it any cozier for them.

8:34
I also wasn't sure whether we had knob and tube wiring still in part of the house and blown-in insulation, plus that mystery wiring.
It felt like a potential fire hazard.
And then, of course, filling the soffits felt like inviting rot spray foam.

8:49
That just seemed nasty to me. $40,000 at that time was not even remotely a possibility.
So it was very easy to just say no and forget that even happened.
Yeah, that was 10 years ago.
This time, we aren't talking about spray foam, and we're not talking about filling wall cavities.

9:07
We're not talking about turning the house into a sealed cooler of any kind.
We were just thinking, or we're just thinking, I guess, still about insulating the attic and improving the ventilation because ice dams form when that heat escapes through the ceiling up into the attic and warms the underside of the roof deck, melts the snow, and then that meltwater refreezes again, filling.

9:30
Like I'm repeating myself because we talked about this last week.
So the obvious solution that we're trying to do here is reduce the heat loss.
So we'd want to add attic insulation, tighten that thermal boundary, slow down the melt pattern so that the roof stays consistently cold.

9:46
And in theory, that would reduce the ice dams.
I've been focusing on improving the home's energy efficiency overall, you know, restoring the windows, buttoning up everything, thinking long term addic insulation is aligned with that bigger goal.
And I was thinking of many, many different ways to do that.

10:04
You know, rock wool, rigid foam in some sections, trying to figure out how to keep that, all the baffles in, maybe building a knee wall, figuring out how to deal with the soffits.
But the more I thought about that, I got worried about the roof itself because we have a flat section, if I reduce the heat loss in the snow melt less from below, then that snow will sit longer.

10:27
And if it sits longer, it will get heavier.
And on that flat section, honestly, I guess on the whole roof, that weight matters.
Snow load, it's not theoretical; it's structural.
And in extreme cases, this year being one of them, in some past years, we've had some huge snowstorms.

10:47
It really wouldn't be about ice dams or as much about ice dams.
It would be about whether the roof would be carrying more weight than it can handle anymore.
Thinking about maintenance, there's no way we can get on the roof and safely shovel it several times each winter, nor can we find someone else to do it.

11:03
That's just not going to be a possibility.
Now, technically, the joists are oversized and look to be in perfect condition.
I inspect them several times a year because I am that kind of person, and on paper, they're probably fine.
But the house is 140 years old.
So before I rush to change how the roof handles snow, I think it's wise to respect the fact that this structure has already been carrying a lot for a very long time.

11:29
And it's important to ask whether, by adding insulation, if we would be shifting the problem instead of solving it.
Because once you start changing how these old houses handle heat, you're changing more than one thing.
You're changing airflow, you're changing moisture patterns, you're changing how snow melts or doesn't.

11:48
And these old houses do not love sudden aggressive changes.
If I insulate the attic, I want to do it in a way that improves energy performance without creating a snow load issue, a ventilation issue, or a moisture issue somewhere else.
That's the balancing act, and that's how we got here.

12:05
And speaking of ventilation, insulation without ventilation is only half of the conversation.
Modern houses are designed with ventilation in mind.
You've seen those perforated soffits, the neat little rows of holes built right into the vinyl siding.
Hardy panels have it too.
Air comes into the eaves, it exits at the Ridge, and everything is engineered to move moisture and maintain a consistent roof temperature.

12:28
Old houses were designed differently.
They weren't built as sealed systems.
They relied on air movement in ways that don't always translate cleanly into modern insulation strategies.
You know, retrofitting ventilation into an old house.
It isn't as simple as cutting a few holes and then saying, OK, that's good because I don't know about you, but there are birds near my house and insects.

12:52
And there's historic detailing.
There's the reality that once you start altering the soffits, you know, you're permanently altering original material.
And I don't really like that.
In the perfect world, I think the solution at my house would probably be a brand new roof with a proper thermal brake, engineered ventilation channels, you know, continuous intake and exhaust, a beautiful insulated attic underneath.

13:16
I would love that so much.
But that's also about 120,000 plus solution if we're lucky.
I haven't priced that in 2026.
And that is not the lane we're in.
We cannot do that.
We are operating now on a much smaller budget.

13:31
We're going to improve what we have without rebuilding the entire system from scratch.
I would have to vent my soffits, maybe every few feet, put a hole, maybe some mesh.
But I, that would never hold up against birds and insects, no way, no how.

13:49
And I would spend my summers fighting the wildlife in my soffit ventilation.
It would be terrible.
Now, I know some of you are probably yelling at your speakers right now with opinions, and you know I welcome that.
Send them.
I would love to hear from you.

14:06
Because this is where it stops being theoretical.
If I add insulation without adequate ventilation, I risk trapping moisture.
If I aggressively retrofit ventilation without understanding the system, I risk introducing new problems, primarily wildlife, I'm guessing.

14:23
And as I mentioned before, you know, it's complex.
In old houses, you change one thing, you affect three others.
Old houses do not do magic fixes.
And I'm not sure why.
I convinced myself that maybe this time, when we look into insulation, it would suddenly be uncomplicated.

14:39
So I think I'm just going to let that insulation solution, maybe just let it percolate, let it roll around in my brain just a little bit, and see, see if I can think of something new.
I'm not going to obsess about it, or hopefully it won't keep me up at nights.

14:54
Can't promise that.
But I'm just going to let it sit for a bit.
It's very expensive, and I don't want to make any rash decisions because before we consider spending big bucks, I went back to take a hard look at what happened at the edge of the roof over the winter.
And maybe it's worth trying to solve it there first because I'm not entirely convinced that the decisions I made with the gutters last summer and the heat tape that I did that perfectly.

15:19
But let's talk about that after the break.

17:55
So here's where we are.
I'm letting the insulation idea roll around in my brain.
We'll see what happens there.
And in the meantime, with all this time on my hands in Salt Lake City, I have had time to think about where our gutter situation went wrong.
When they installed the gutters last summer, they used roof straps.

18:12
You probably know what those are, but in case you don't, they're the kind that are on top of the shingles.
They are not pretty, and if you care about clean roof lines, they're noticeable, and you will hate them.
I can hear some of you grumbling from your houses right now.
I don't like them either, but we have always had the straps on a roof that hold the gutters on this house because there's this really big, thick crown molding that runs around the entire roof line.

18:36
They've never been able to, you know, screw gutters directly into the face with the standard brackets.
It just doesn't work.
There's not enough reveal on our fascia to hold anything like that.
What they've done in the past, whenever we've made repairs, is just take a can of spray paint up there, and then they just have spray-painted the straps on the roof, and you really can't see them.

18:56
You don't even notice them anymore.
But I was trying to figure out, I thought, why did these gutters fail in one season?
And as I guess I should note too, they had not spray-painted them, and it looked really bad.
I admit it looked really bad, and I had planned to go up there and spray paint them at some point.

19:12
I hadn't gotten that far.
But anyway, I was trying to figure out why they failed in one season.
So I was thinking about the past, and in the past, we had multiple layers of shingles.
When we first moved in there, I think there were 4 layers of roofing.
And so the companies that we had before, those straps were actually tucked between layers, and that held the gutters in place much.

19:34
You know, there was, it was pretty strong because it was between layers of shingles.
When we got the new roof, which was a complete tear-off, they actually put them under the shingles again because it was all done at one time.
So the straps were both hidden but also held on by the shingles, which was a much stronger system.

19:54
Last summer, that was not the case.
They were just, you know, right on top of the shingles.
They weren't integrated into the assembly in any way.
I didn't question it at the time.
You know, we'd always had roof straps.
That's the way it was.
They were hideous.
But again, I was going to spray paint them at some point.

20:10
But structurally, that was a different system, and winter exposed that difference.
You know some of the straps popped off the roof, and in some sections, the brackets and gutters failed.
My friend Steve Jordan, he heard the podcast episode last week where I was talking about this.

20:27
And so he sent me a message, and he actually, he sent me an e-mail.
He mentioned that gutters can widen slightly, or you know, the metal can widen slightly as they freeze.
And then that expansion actually put stress on the feral and screw fasteners.

20:42
And over time, especially under a heavy ice load, that can loosen the system enough for the gutter to pull away from the brackets.
That was kind of a lightbulb moment for me because then I realized it might not just be about snow weight.

20:58
It might be about hardware, the expansion, and the attachment points.
Because I think the extra weight plus the metal expansion created an uneven load, you know, across that long roof line.
And that was what resulted in the big boom.

21:14
There we go, the gutters.
Steve also suggested fastening gutters into the rafter tails.
I don't think he knew one, about my crown molding.
But also, our rafter tails are enclosed, so that's not exactly a simple swap.
I'll have to find them first.
But it raises the right question, you know, where is the strongest structural attachment point?

21:35
You know, if we're going to keep managing snow at the roof edge, the gutters themselves have to be hung in a way that accounts for that expansion, contraction, and ice load.
And maybe adding some extra supports attached to the rafter tails when we can find them.
You know, that's a solution worth exploring.

21:50
So thank you, Steve, for that.
And then I have to come clean about the heat tape, which actually came from a highly rated company in Minnesota.
We did start off on kind of the wrong foot.
I had some trouble with their AI measuring tool, which calculated about half as much of the heat tape as I needed.

22:09
And so I had to kind of pivot what I had planned and do half as much of the roof as I planned.
I followed the directions perfectly for the roof edge install, but I didn't put any heat tape in the gutters or the downspouts.

22:26
It wasn't really encouraged as a focus.
Maybe on the contractor side, but not on the DIY side.
I've since learned that heat cables in the gutters and the downspouts are very important.
You know, the runoff needs a way to get to the ground just like rainwater, otherwise it'll just quickly freeze into more ice.

22:44
I guess that part feels encouraging.
I think I could make improvements to the lower cost solutions, the gutters, the heat tape.
That could really help, you know, stronger attachment points, better hardware choices, smarter placement of the heat cables.

23:00
Not necessarily a total overhaul.
I guess it's kind of a total overhaul because I have to buy everything new again.
But, you know, it's a refinement of what we had before, and that might be enough.
You know what I'm thinking about this.
This conversation really doesn't feel like an ice dam conversation anymore.

23:20
It kind of feels like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books.
Do you remember those books?
I used to love those.
You know, you're in a cave.
There's a flashlight.
You can go left or right.
Turn to page 42 if you choose bravery.
Turn to page 17 if you choose snacks.
Except, I guess in this version, it would be all roofing decisions.

23:38
You know, something like, I don't know, like you insulate the attic.
Turn to page 105.
The snow load shifts, something unexpected gives, and a family of raccoons falls into your bed at 2:00 AM.

23:56
I don't know, but maybe that's the point.
I guess maybe that is the point.
There is no perfect page to turn to.
There's just, you know, the choice that makes the most sense for this house with the information that I have right now.
So if we zoom out, this does absolutely need to be addressed this season.

24:17
I don't want to lose another set of gutters.
I don't want to keep replacing the same components every single year or every few years.
I guess that's the difference.
Maybe I keep saying that, don't I?
But I we have enough information now to make the smarter next move.
Insulation is still on the table, you know better, gutter attachment is on the table, and more thoughtful heat cable placement is on the table.

24:41
I'm just trying to build a system that handles serious winter weather, and the maintenance that I'm left with is something that I can realistically keep up with.
That's the goal.
This is old house life, right?
We compare notes, we try things, we adjust.

24:57
And I guess hopefully hearing how other people are handling it makes us all a little smarter.
You know what?
Let's take another quick break.
When we come back, we are officially done talking about eyes.
At least until I return with a solution, which will not be this episode.

25:13
We'll check in on the State of Restoration project.
And what on earth are we calling these?
Not-so-mini-sodes.
I'll be back.

27:46
OK, we are back, and I am genuinely, genuinely excited about this part because while I have been staring at my roof, some of you have been sending me voicemails about what's going on in your towns, and the State of Restoration project is starting to take shape.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, again, I have to recap.

28:05
I'll do it really quickly.
Last October, I was at the window preservation summit at the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Kentucky.
There were about 100 preservation-minded people all in one place.
And that's when I found myself wondering: What does restoration look like where all of you live and where all of them live?

28:21
You know, is it thriving?
Is it struggling?
Are historic buildings being cared for?
Are they disappearing?
So I asked this question: What is the state of restoration where you are?
And that was the prompt.
And I actually recorded them.
I asked them to keep it under one minute.
I wanted just a snapshot, kind of a pulse check from the ground.

28:39
And I shared two of their responses last week.
I have two more for you today.
I purposely chose both of them from Saint Louis.
And to be clear, these two people did not confer with each other beforehand.
Here's the first one.

28:55
I'm Beverly Brandt.
I own Artisan Restoration in the Saint Louis area and we've been in business for roughly a dozen years, and the state of restoration in the Saint Louis area is something that I'm very positive about.
Our customers are interested and excited about restoring their historic homes.

29:16
And what's really interesting and exciting to me is that most of those customers are younger people.
They're people that have just moved into a house in a historic neighborhood.
They understand the fit and finish and the quality that they want and they understand that they need to be stewards of that building.

29:35
The only negative perhaps is in some cases when we're dealing with some of the general contractors and architecture firms in the Saint Louis area, that they want to be layer, they want to put aside historic restoration for other cost-saving measures.

29:50
But we feel that we need to, you know, be a part of the education in that particular case.
I love that, and I appreciate that Beverly was specific about seeing some variety in her clientele.
That's an important piece of info.
Right here is the second one.
My name is Kelsey Moss.

30:07
I own Moss Restoration in St.
Louis, MO, and I find that the state of preservation in Saint Louis right now is really strong.
We have 17 historic districts, so we have to preserve some things by our rules.
But we also had a tornado, which has changed things a little bit.

30:23
But even outside of that, there's a high demand.
Our clients are still calling.
We people are still interested in it and it's not a very hard sell, I don't think.
Oh, that's a good one too.
In this case, or in both of their cases, Kelsey and Beverly are both sharing mostly positive experiences in Saint Louis.

30:41
I know that a lot has been happening there recently, including the storm damage, and that's brought quite a bit of work to people in the preservation field.
And that kind of moment, I guess, can definitely influence how things feel on the ground.
And that's exactly why I wanted to share 2 responses from the same place because even within one city, experiences can look different.

31:01
So if you hear someone from your area, please don't think oh, that's covered, you don't want to hear from me, because your perspective might be different, or it might add another layer.
That's the whole point.
So let me tell you how you can participate.
Click on the microphone icon on the True Tales from Old House's website is down on the right-hand side, lower right-hand side.

31:20
Leave me a 45 to 60 ish second audio message.
I answer in complete sentences.
Tell me your name, where you are, and what you're seeing unfold in your town, community, city right now.
That's it.
There's no production required.
I'll take care of all of that.

31:37
You can do this on your computer if you have a mic, but honestly, it's easiest on your phone or tablet.
You don't have to be a professional; you just have to live where you live and pay attention.
That said, if you are in the preservation field, feel free to mention that.
That's fine by me, and I want to say thank you to everyone who has already left a voicemail.

31:55
I really appreciate that.
Think of this as kind of a living, slightly scrappy map, I guess, of preservation across the country.
I don't really know what we're going to do with any of this data yet, but it'll come to me.
It'll come to me.
Maybe we can use it somewhere, or maybe one of you has an idea of where we can use it, but I just find it so interesting.

32:17
OK, and now let's circle back to this minisode situation.
Devyn, do you all remember Devyn?
He was my first co-host.
He lives in Portugal now.
He was the one who actually suggested side porch, which I think is kind of charming.
It has a mood.
Jake.

32:33
These are the things I said at the top of the show, by the way, Jake.
He was the one who thought of Portico, and I considered coffee conversations, or kind of changed it to coffee conversations based on a suggestion from Anna.
And here's my honest, honest confession.

32:49
I'm not sure that we've landed on it yet.
Not because the suggestions aren't good, they are.
But nothing has really clicked.
I guess in a way where you hear it, where I hear it, and think, oh, that's it.
That's the one.
Which makes me wonder if maybe I'm asking the wrong question, because I guess what are these episodes really?

33:07
We know they're not many.
That ship has sailed.
They're not really interviews; they're not quite essays.
They're somewhere between a check-in and a ramble and a little bit of a structure deep dive, maybe. So maybe the question isn't, you know, what do we call it?

33:25
Maybe the question is, I guess, what does it feel like to you when you press play?
Is it a catch-up?
Is it a workshop?
Because if we can name it, maybe the title will follow.
So here's what I'm asking.

33:41
If you have already made a suggestion, thank you.
I read everyone, and I will continue to do that as we are trying to decide here.
If you haven't sent a suggestion, please feel free.
I'd love to hear it.
And if you think one of the existing names, something that I've already said, works, then tell me why, because maybe I'm just not seeing it yet.

34:03
But we'll figure it out.
Just like the roof, just like my gutters, just like everything else.
Thank you for listening to True Tales From Old Houses, and thank you to our sponsors Sutherland Welles, Brouns and Co., Linseed Oil Paint, Heritage Supply Co., and the Old House Shop.

34:23
To continue the conversation, follow True Tales From Old Houses and me at Blake Hill House on Instagram and subscribe to Notes from an Old House on Sub Stack.
Check the show notes where you're listening right now for a direct link.
I genuinely, I genuinely love hearing from you.

34:39
So send messages, send voice memos, send dramatic updates about your gutters, Instagram, Substack, e-mail, the voicemail button on the website.
I check them all.
And before you fall down an insulation and ventilation rabbit hole of your own, I need a favor.
If you enjoyed today's episode, leave a rating and review wherever you're listening.

34:58
It's free, it takes about 30 seconds, and it helps more old house people find this show.
Also, hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss the next episode in case I report back with a very strong opinion about gutter fasteners.
Take care of your old houses and each other.

35:14
Until next time.