ice dam reprieve

The mudroom has stopped leaking and the roof is shedding water as it should.  Hooray!

Let me offer a couple more things regarding clearing ice dams though.  If you go up on your ice covered roof to clear snow, you better be careful. 

I read a story of a local man who recently, in the process of clearing ice dams, got caught in an avalanche of snow, was swept off the roof and landed head first in the snow.  He was almost completely buried with only his feet sticking out.  The weight of the snow was so great, he could barely move. He had the good sense not to panic and wiggled his body enough to get his cell phone to drop out of his pocket to where he could reach it (remember he's upside down) and call for help.

Besides safety, you should know that chopping ice off your roof is a good way to damage your roof.  As careful as I was, I still tore a couple of shingles.  I had to weigh the risk of letting water continue to leak into the walls against a torn shingle or two. I decided that considering the amount of ice and snow on the roof (see the pile that reaches from the ground to the roof in the picture--remember, this is March folks), I wanted to put an end to the leaking as soon as possible.