Salt Roof Ice

But are they doing more harm than good.

Salt roof ice. While safely on the ground toss a roofmelt tablet onto the roof. Salt pucks are supposed to eliminate the need to climb onto your roof and are designed to melt snow and ice before ice dams can form. Here are four reasons salt pucks are bad for your roof. The tablets help prevent roof damage by melting through ice dams and allowing water to drain safely.

Emphasis on the as possible part. You should only use it on roofs in select circumstances like severe cold. Again for the most part you don t want to throw any type of ice melt product on your roof. But if you ve let your ice dam fester for so long that you can t even get a credible ice dam company to help you because they re booked solid salt may help you emerge from your diy ice dam removal adventure as unscathed as possible.

Sprinkle a chemical deicer on the roof to get rid of large sections of snow. Most salt pucks use calcium chloride to melt ice which can cause numerous issues down the line. Rock salt is common for de icing driveways and paths. Wear gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals and throw small handfuls of the deicer onto the roof so it can start melting the snow.

They work effectively in temperatures down to 25 f. The key is to avoid sodium chloride or rock salt. Purchase the salt you d use to melt ice on a sidewalk or driveway from a local hardware or big box store. However rock salt is a form of sodium chloride which corrodes metal including the metal nails holding your shingles in place.

If it s applied routinely it can damage shingles nails eavestroughs and other fittings. It should be no surprise then that it is the first thing many people think of to remove ice dams.