Ice Dam Leaks in DeWitt: Mid-Century Eaves Meet the Thaw

An ice dam forms where meltwater from the warm part of the roof runs to the cold overhang and refreezes. The airport record for Syracuse counts about 84 days a year that cross freezing, with March the worst month. That is Syracuse's number, not DeWitt's, so read it as the regional cycle that roof edges here go through.

About three in four DeWitt homes were built before 1980, by Census estimates, so a good share of these houses have probably been reroofed at least once. A past reroof decides whether the eave got a barrier. That is a proxy, and the eave itself is the evidence.

The median DeWitt house was built in 1963, and the shingle roof on it is commonly a later set. Whether an ice barrier is under the eave shingles depends on who did the last reroof, and you cannot see it from the ground. Ask the roofer to check and write down what they find.

The code asks for the barrier in areas with a history of ice forming along the eaves, from the roof edge to at least 24 inches inside the wall line, and for a drip edge on a shingle roof. Planning and Zoning answers questions if you are unsure how the code applies to your job.

Tell the roofer when the leak shows. A stain in a thaw means the eave. A stain in every rain means something else. Ask what the dam did to the deck boards and to the ceiling below, and whether the estimate separates an eave repair from a replacement.

The Department of Energy puts the upstream cause inside the house: heat escaping into the attic melts the snow. Its order of work is air sealing, insulation and venting, and that is a different job from the roof. For this page the question is the eave and what keeps water out next March.