What ice damage repair involves
Damaged eave sections rebuilt with ice barrier, and the ventilation that caused it corrected.
An ice dam is a ventilation problem wearing a weather costume. Fix the attic or it returns.
What matters on ice damage repair
Reading hail honestly
Hail shows on soft metals first. Vents, flashing and gutter aprons take visible dents before the shingle mat shows bruising, so those are what we check first to date the storm and gauge severity. Bruising on the shingle itself is felt as much as seen.
Wind damage runs in lines
Wind gets under a course and lifts along a run, so the one missing shingle visible from the street is rarely the whole of it. The creased tabs either side of it have broken their seal even though they are still in place, and those fail in the next storm.
How the system goes together
How long a bead of sealant lasts
Roof sealant is a consumable. In this climate, with the ultraviolet load and the temperature swing, a good product stays flexible for a handful of years and then shrinks, crazes and pulls away from one side of the joint. That is normal and expected behavior for the material.
Design so sealant is a backup
Every joint that matters should shed water by its shape, with the sealant there as a second line. Where sealant is the only thing standing between water and the deck, somebody has signed you up for a maintenance visit every few years.
Ask what is holding a repair together
If the answer is caulk, ask again.
Open valley or closed
A closed valley weaves or cuts the shingles across the intersection. An open valley runs metal down the center with the shingles cut back off it. Around here, with the volume of water and ice a valley concentrates, open metal over ice-and-water shield is the detail we reach for on most homes. It moves debris out instead of catching it, and it gives ice a smooth surface instead of a shingle edge to grab.
The W profile
A center rib keeps water from one plane washing up under the shingles on the other.
What we check
- Ice barrier coverage past the warm wall line
- Where the ice dams form and why
- Attic ventilation behind the eave
- Gutters and heat cable after the thaw
How we approach it
Look first
We get on the roof and read what is actually happening before quoting anything.
Say what we find
Photographs and a plain explanation, including when the answer is that you do not need us yet.
Built in sequence
Crews we hire and run, working the right detail in the right order.
Leave it clean
Magnet over the yard, container gone, walked with you.
Southwest exposure ages fastest
If you only had time to look at one slope on a house here, look at the one facing between south and west. It takes the high sun through the middle of the day and it takes the afternoon heat, so the binder in the asphalt gives up there first. Cupped tabs, bare patches of mat, and a granule line in the gutter under that slope alone.
A roof can be two ages
And knowing that keeps a repair from turning into a replacement it did not need to be.
Wet leaves against a wall line
Where a lower roof runs into a two-story wall, leaves and needles collect in that inside corner and stay. The pile holds water directly against the bottom of the siding and the top of the step flashing, which is the one place on a roof where a little standing moisture does the most damage.
Clear the corner, check the kickout
A kickout flashing at the bottom of that run throws the water into the gutter instead of behind the siding. Plenty of houses up here were built without one.
Where roofs go wrong
The shortcut we see most
A claim filed off a ground-level look. Damage gets missed, the scope comes back short, and the homeowner finds out the hard way in the next storm.
What good looks like instead
The whole roof walked and photographed, soft metals checked to date the storm, and the adjuster met on the roof so everyone is reading the same evidence.
Signs worth a look
- Dents in vents, flashing or the gutter apron
- Shingles creased but still in place
- Granule loss concentrated on one slope
- Debris or branch strike marks on the field
What to expect
What to do first
Get the water stopped and get photographs. If something is actively coming in, call and we will make it safe before anything else happens. Documentation of the immediate aftermath is worth having.
How the claim process runs
We document the damage thoroughly, you file, and we work with your insurance from there. On hail-damaged roofs, we work with your insurance to get the roof covered, and the assessment is made from the same evidence we gathered.
Temporary versus permanent
Tarping and emergency sealing buy time and nothing more. Temporary is temporary and we say so. The permanent repair follows once the weather gives us a window.
Related work
Storm covers more than one job, and they are not interchangeable. These are the others in the same family, each on its own page.
Questions we get asked
Not the question you had? Call the shop and ask a person. We would rather talk it through than have you guess from a website.
(801) 382-8898How soon after a storm should I get it looked at?
Soon, while the evidence is fresh and before the next weather makes it worse. Hail in particular shows on soft metals before it shows on the shingles.
Is all storm damage visible from the ground?
No, and that is the problem. Wind damage runs along a line and hail bruising is often invisible until the mat starts to fail. Both need somebody on the roof.
Will my insurance cover it?
On hail-damaged roofs, we work with your insurance to get the roof covered. We document the damage completely so nothing gets missed in the assessment.
What happens if you find bad decking?
We show you. The decking is only visible during a tear-off, so that is when soft sheathing gets found and replaced. We photograph it rather than just add it to a list.
What makes a Utah roof different?
Snow load, ice at the eaves, canyon wind and high-altitude sun, all on the same roof. A crew that learned roofing somewhere mild has to learn it again up here.
Will you tell me if I do not need a new roof?
Yes. Plenty of what we look at turns out to be a repair, and we say so. A roof with years left in it gets left alone, and you get the photographs either way.
Ask about ice damage repair
Call (801) 382-8898 or send a note. We will look at the roof and tell you straight what it needs.