Icicles and a stained ceiling in Cicero: ice dam repair at the eave

An ice dam forms where meltwater from warmer roof surface runs down to the cold overhang and freezes. The water behind it has nowhere to go and creeps up under the shingles. Syracuse roofs cross freezing in both directions on about 84 days a year, and March is the worst month for it, with roughly 18 crossings by the airport record.

The station at Brewerton Lock 23, in northern Onondaga County, records about 109 crossings a year against the airport's 84. It is a station, not your roof, but it sits on the north side of the county, so your eave may see more repeats.

New York's residential code asks for an ice barrier at the lowest edges of a roof, reaching at least 24 inches in past the outside wall, where ice has formed along eaves before. It also requires a drip edge at the eaves of a shingle roof.

Neither is a cure for the cause of the ice, which starts inside the house, but both are what stops the water getting into the wall and ceiling.

The upstream fix is air sealing, insulating and venting the attic, in that order. That is a separate job from the roof. This page is about the eave: if the shingles have been lifted by ice and water, the repair is replacing what the dam damaged and making sure the barrier and drip edge are there.

Cicero houses are mostly detached and the median was built around 1980. A roof on a house of that age may or may not have an ice barrier at the eave, and you cannot tell from the ground. Do not assume either way. Ask the roofer to check the edge during the visit and write down what they find.

A repair can be limited to the first few feet of roof at the eave. If the deck underneath is stained, soft or delaminated, the estimate should say so and price replacing it. A ceiling that stains only in a thaw does not mean the whole roof is failing, and the estimate should show a repair option next to a replacement.