Your roof isn't leaking. Your attic is.
Ice dam removal, leak repair · and the fix that stops them coming back.
An ice dam is a symptom. Cold weather is the trigger; heat escaping your attic is the cause. We deal with the ice safely, repair what the water reached, and find the heat leak so next February looks different. Two Michigan offices, family-owned since 1984.
Get your free estimate
Tell us where the ice is and where the water shows up. A local expert calls you back.
Five things before we get there.
The next hour matters more than the diagnosis. Do these, then call — we'll tell you when we can be there.
Bucket under the drip, plastic on the floor, and move furniture, electronics, and rugs out of the wet zone.
The ceiling, the ice on the eave, the icicles, and the date. Your insurer will want the timeline.
Hammers and hatchets break shingles and tear gutters loose. Eave ice drops without warning.
It refreezes lower down, makes the dam bigger, and glazes the walkway underneath.
A roof rake on the first three to four feet above the eave removes the snow that feeds the dam. Ground only, away from power lines.
Warm attic. Cold eave. Water with nowhere to go.
Heat leaks up through the ceiling
Can lights, the attic hatch, bath fans, plumbing and wiring holes — every one is a chimney for warm air. The attic ends up warmer than the air outside.
The roof deck warms above 32°F
Snow melts from underneath, not from the sun. The Department of Energy notes it takes as little as two inches of snow on the roof to start the cycle.
Meltwater refreezes at the cold eave
The overhang sits outside the heated house, so it stays below freezing. The water hits it and turns to ice — that ridge along the gutter line is the dam.
The pool climbs under the shingles
Shingles shed water running down, not water standing behind a wall of ice. It works under the laps, through the deck, into insulation and drywall — usually along an outside wall.
Three conditions have to line up, and Michigan supplies all three from December to March: snow on the roof, a roof surface above freezing higher up, and a roof surface below freezing at the eave. Two of those are weather. The middle one is your attic.
Eight places the warm air usually gets out.
Recessed can lights
Older cans are open to the attic and run hot. A few of them across a top-floor ceiling can warm a roof deck by themselves.
The attic hatch or pull-down stairs
Usually a thin panel with no gasket and no insulation — a hole in the ceiling the size of a door.
Bath fans that vent into the attic
Warm, wet air blown straight onto the underside of the deck. It melts snow and grows frost and mold at the same time.
Plumbing stacks and wiring holes
Every pipe and cable that passes through the ceiling leaves a gap around it. Small individually, big together.
The chimney chase
Framed chases around chimneys and flues are often open from the basement to the attic — one continuous warm shaft.
Thin insulation at the edges
Where the roof meets the wall there's no room for full depth, so the eave end of the ceiling is the least insulated part of the house — directly under where the dam forms.
Kneewalls and dropped soffits
Cape Cods, bonus rooms, and kitchen soffits create hidden cavities that connect heated space to the attic.
Blocked soffit vents
Insulation pushed into the eaves cuts off the cold air that's supposed to wash the underside of the deck. The attic can't stay cold if it can't breathe.
Is your attic the problem?
Check everything that's true for your house. No email, no signup — just a straight read on where your ice dams are coming from.
Every box you check points at the attic.
Most Michigan ice dams trace back to two or three of these. Check the ones that fit and we'll tell you which fix usually comes first.
Four fixes, in the order they actually work.
Skip a step and the dam comes back. Do them in order and most houses never see one again.
Air-seal the ceiling plane
Foam and caulk the can lights, hatch, top plates, plumbing and wiring holes, the chimney chase, and the bath-fan duct. This is the cheapest fix and the one that matters most — it stops the warm air before it reaches the deck.
Insulate to R-49
Michigan's code minimum for our counties is R-49 — about 14 to 16 inches of blown insulation — and the newer code cycle points toward R-60. Insulation slows the heat that sealing didn't catch.
Ventilate so the attic stays cold
Baffles at every rafter bay keep a clear channel above the insulation, balanced soffit and ridge venting keeps outside air moving under the deck, and the roof stays as cold as the weather.
Ice barrier at the eaves
Michigan code requires ice-and-water shield from the eave to at least 24 inches inside the warm wall. When your roof is replaced, that membrane is the last line of defense if a dam ever forms again.
We repair what the dam reached — and what let it in.
Backed-up water rarely stays at the eave. By the time a ceiling stains, it has usually soaked insulation, wet the top of the wall, and sometimes rotted the first row of decking. Our crews open it up, dry it out, and rebuild it properly.
- Eave and deck repair — replace rotted sheathing and fascia, reset drip edge, install ice-and-water shield to code or beyond.
- Gutters torn loose by ice load — re-hang, re-pitch, or replace, and fix the fascia behind them.
- Interior water damage — wet insulation out, drywall and paint, with photos for your insurance file.
- Attic corrections — air-sealing, insulation, baffles, and bath-fan ducting done while the attic is open.
What actually happens to your roof with each method.
Every winter we repair roofs that were fine until someone tried to fix the ice dam.
Heat cables? They melt drainage channels; they don't stop dams. We'll tell you if your roofline is one of the few that genuinely needs them after the attic is fixed.
Why our part of Michigan grows ice dams.
The dam needs snow on the roof and a swing across 32°F. Our winters deliver both, over and over.
Snowfall and temperature figures are NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals for the nearest reporting stations.
The dangerous winter isn't the coldest one. It's the one that snows, thaws to 34°F for an afternoon, and freezes hard again that night — a January pattern Metro Detroit and the Thumb repeat a dozen times a season. Every cycle melts a little more from the top of the roof and adds a little more ice at the bottom.
What's usually covered, and what isn't.
Usually covered: the sudden interior damage — stained ceilings, wet drywall, soaked insulation, ruined flooring — and the roof repair where the water forced its way in. Most Michigan policies treat an ice-dam backup as a covered peril.
Usually not covered: removing the ice, and the attic air-sealing, insulation, and ventilation that prevent the next one. Carriers call that maintenance, and some will argue the whole loss was maintenance if the paperwork is thin.
What protects you: photos of the ice and the damage with dates, a written cause-of-loss from us, and prompt notice to your carrier. Michigan law gives you at least one year from the date of loss to bring a claim (MCL 500.2833), and the state's insurance regulator, DIFS, takes consumer complaints at 877-999-6442 if a settlement doesn't add up.
What we won't do to your house.
- Chip, hack, or salt your roof to get the ice off.
- Walk an icy roof to make a point.
- Sell you heat cables as a cure.
- Blow insulation over a ceiling nobody sealed.
- Promise a time we can't keep — we tell you when we can be there.
- Pretend the ice is the problem when the attic is.
More on ice dams and attics from our crew.
Straight answers for a Michigan winter.
Ice dam help from Port Huron to Troy.
Port Huron covers St. Clair, Sanilac, and Lapeer counties and the Thumb. Troy covers Oakland and Macomb. Call the office nearest you. Storm and hail claims in Kalamazoo County and Southwest Michigan are handled by the same crews.
Get the ice handled and the cause found.
One call covers the removal, the repair, and the attic work that ends it. Estimates are free.
Family-owned since 1984 · Michigan Builders License #262000657 · Licensed & insured · Office lines are voice only — please call.