“In the first week, I think we had over 500 missed calls that we had to get back to,” said Benjamin Connell, president of Wrentham-based Connell Roofing. “My team was working later than normal until like 10 o’clock at night and on the weekends just to get back to people.”
Ice dams form when rooftop snow melts from either heat escaping from inside the home or from long exposure to the sun and then refreezes at the eaves, trapping water that works its way inside — damage that experts say can escalate quickly without intervention.
“There’s no set formula as to which houses get it,” said DJ Warila, owner of Green Monster Roof Cleaning. “It’s about trying to be proactive before the snow accumulates and is able to create an ice dam.”
The sudden demand has been so great that ice dam removal crews from other parts of the country are coming to New England to help.
On a typical day for the past couple weeks, Minnesota-based RTD Ice Dam Removal books 30 to 40 emergency jobs in Massachusetts, a surge so intense that managers are flying in additional workers and equipment to keep up, according to Mike Hilborn, the company’s president.
“As long as we’re getting calls, we’ll be here,” Hilborn said Tuesday, noting that many homeowners don’t realize there’s a problem until water is already inside.
“When you’ve got water leaking into your house, it’s a horrible feeling,” he said.
He said his workers use steamers to safely melt the dams, a common issue in Minnesota but one that hasn’t been this widespread in Massachusetts since the brutal winter of 2015, when the Boston area was crushed with more than 7 feet of snow over just three weeks.
Some ice dam removal companies have reported getting more than 1,000 calls for service in Massachusetts and across New England in the last two weeks.
“Nobody wants to be woken up to that in the middle of the night, [a] crashing sound and running water,” said John Capetz of the Ice Dam Guys, another Minnesota-based company that is also working in the area.
Ice dams have become an increasing problem for New England homeowners as repeated snowfall piles up on roofs, according to Globe meteorologist Ken Mahan. Even with air temperatures staying below freezing, a combination of the higher winter sun angle and heat escaping from homes is triggering small-scale freeze–thaw cycles on roofs.
Snow slowly melts from solar radiation and household heat, then refreezes when temperatures plunge into the single digits or below zero, as they have repeatedly in recent weeks, Mahan said. That refreezing water can expand in gutters or force its way under shingles, creating damage and allowing more water to penetrate the roof during subsequent cycles.
Mahan noted that even well-maintained homes can be vulnerable, especially those exposed to wind, where snow may harden before it can be removed. His advice: use a roof rake to clear snow buildup before it has a chance to melt and refreeze, reducing the risk of dams forming in the first place.
But homeowners may only be able to reach the lower portions of their roofs safely before needing to call in the professionals.
“I’ve serviced quite a few customers who had snow rakes and were able to get the bottom couple of feet off their roof, and then they’ve just got an ice dam where they stopped shoveling,” Connell said.
He said his crews can remove the snow from a homeowner’s roof, which can help prevent ice dams from forming or growing, but they don’t have the gear to safely remove the dams, which he describes as “winter concrete.”
“It’s like glued inside the gutter and onto the roof, one big piece of winter concrete,” he said. “Removing it essentially would cause more damage to the house.”
He said his company and others in Massachusetts don’t have steamers to use as do the crews from Minnesota. Instead, Connell Roofing focuses on removing the snow altogether from roofs to stop the melt-and-refreeze cycle.
“When we remove that blanket of snow, it allows the heat to escape and not melt the snow from the underside of that blanket. So when that snow is removed, essentially that melting and refreezing has stopped,” he said.
The cost for removal of roof snow typically runs about $1,000 for an average-sized home, Connell said, depending on roof size, pitch, access, and snow depth.
Connell said many callers reached out only after seeing interior damage.
“Once you’re behind the leak, you already have damage,” he said.
Removing the ice dam itself will likely cost homeowners more. Hilborn’s company, RTD Ice Dam Removal, charges $1,000 per hour with a two-hour minimum.
“It’s an incredible amount of money, I get that. But it matches the requirement of this thing, flying guys in and out, there’s a lot to it,” Hilborn said. “If somebody has an ice problem and they know where it is, we can knock it out within two hours.”
When Hilborn saw the nor’easter that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in Boston recently, he said he knew the demand for ice dam removal would soon follow. He immediately dispatched some crews that brought in equipment by truck, with others following by plane.
Hilborn’s crews have been fanning out across Greater Boston and beyond for nearly two weeks. He said demand has continued to build, recalling the firm has not seen volume like this in New England since the historic winter of 2015, the last time it dispatched workers to Massachusetts.
Hilborn said steam is the safest method to avoid property damage. Using hammers, hatchets, or open flames can crack roofs or cause fires, he said, pointing to a recent incident in Milton where a resident tried using a blowtorch to melt ice from his home and accidentally set it on fire.
He urged residents to avoid a similar situation.
“The only way to get ice off a roof safely is to melt it off,” Hilborn said. “That’s what we do.”
Nick Stoico can be reached at [email protected]. Hannah Goeke can be reached at [email protected].
