My roof is leaking

[nloding]

For those who are home-owners, a little assistance would be unbelievable!

I live in Michigan, and we got about 4" of snow over the last few days. Now it's warm enough that's it's melting, and it's melting right into my house! I have a bay window in the front of my house, and somehow water is getting between the molding of the bay window and the ceiling in my living rooms.

I investigated outside and found some major ice build-up in the gutters and on the roof of the bay window. There isn't any ice on my the main roof of my house.

Right now I've got the typical towels and buckets beneath the drippy spots ... but I wanna get rid of this? How do I remove the ice build-up on the roof? Just get a blow-torch or what? Where the water is dripping is a joint between two boards ... should I just putty over the joint, or is it better to actually remove the molding and look up in there?

I hate being a home-owner. Renting was a waste of money but I didn't have to deal with any of this stuff!!

 

[adgloride]

Can you not claim on your house insurance and blame it on bad weather?

 

[Bowser128]

Unlike here Adgloride, a lot of Americans (as far as I know) don't actually have home insurance. As for the OP's problem I'm sorry, nothing like that has ever happened to me so I can't help you

 

[mthrnite]

My first thought was to toss a load of salt up on the roof to melt down the ice, but since you've got a leak, that's probably not such a good idea. Bad enough that water's coming in, let's not add salt to the equation.

Anyway, if there's water coming in, there could be rot, if rot, there could be mold. Just because the water hasn't made it to the inside until now, doesn't mean it hasn't gotten in part way.

Probably best to take some of that money that you're not "throwing away" on rent, and throw it away to a professional who can diagnose and fix the problem quickly. You don't want a "tip of the iceberg" thing to be going on without you knowing about it.

Good luck man, I feel for you, water problems suuuuuck.

 

[nloding]

I got up on a ladder and chipped away at the ice dam with a screwdriver and a hammer, being careful not to get near the shingles or siding. It seems to have worked ... I broke whatever was causing the water to flow into the house, and now it's not dripping so much.

I am going to toss some salt up on the roof this afternoon -- I'm leaving in about 10 minutes to get some. Once the weather gets better, I'm going to rip open the molding around the window and see what kind of nastiness exists up there. With any luck, I'll find a new organism living off the grossness in my ceiling and become famous!

I'd take some of my money and throw it at someone to fix it, but the thing is, I'm unemployed right now! SUCKS!