Ice Dam Dispatch

About Ice Dam Dispatch

February in Victoria plays a trick: sun warm enough to melt the roof, nights cold enough to freeze the meltwater at the eaves. The result hangs off half the houses in town — thick ridges of ice backing water up under the shingles, icicles like teeth over the front steps. Ice Dam Dispatch exists for exactly this. The work is roof-line work: pulling the snow load off before it turns to ice, cutting the dams free when they've already formed, giving the melt somewhere to go besides the ceiling. It is cold, careful, ladder-and-steam work in the shortest days of the year, and when it's done a house stops fighting its own roof and just stands quiet under the snow.