KATHY'S HOME & GARDEN TIPS - FREE FLOWING GUTTERS
GET THOSE GUTTERS FLOWING!
It's a good idea to take advantage of any warmer weather to get your gutters free of ice and flowing again. When the sun beats on the roof you have water flowing to the gutters. Unfortunately, the gutters and downspouts are usually clogged with ice; therefore you get ice damming and icicles forming. With ice damming, the ice crawls up under the shingles. This can cause roof damage and even cause leaking inside your house! If you are having your roof replaced make sure your roofer places an ice shield material under the shingles up from the end of the roof. This will help with the ice damming but you still want to keep water flowing. Large icicles can damage your gutter and the constant dripping can cause wet spots that can freeze and become hazardous.
Laying a layer of ice melting salt all along the top of the gutter on top of the ice will often help to melt this ice enough to get some water flowing, especially on a sunny day. Another trick that works is to cut off a length of nylon hose, fill it with salt, tie a knot in the top leaving about six or eight inches. Then tie this to the gutter at the downspout with the ball of salt in the mouth of the downspout. The flowing water will carry the salt through the downspout and help melt any ice in there. Once you have some flowage you can bang on the downspout to dislodge the ice. If you have metal downspouts you can use a torch to melt ice also but BE CAREFUL!!!!!!! You don't want to start any fires!! Good luck!
KATHLEEN WEAVER-ZECH & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
