Ralph,

Look upstream from the icicles and see if you can figure out where the 
melt is happening.  That may be the general area where your insulation 
needs to be enhanced.  Or you may need some ventilation in that area.

Put your gutters back on...in the spring.  The details for installation 
in Graphics Standards work just fine.  Copper gutters don't belong 
under your porch.  Your roof isn't Cedar is it?  If it is, find another 
use for your fancy copper gutters...or accept a shortened life span.

Sounds like a nice house.

-jc



On Wednesday, February 26, 2003, at 12:10  PM, Ralph Walter wrote:

> In a message dated 2/26/2003 10:00:52 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> I thought I had been sucked into lecturing you on the wonders of
> gutters and ice dams I thought I was learning something, but now don't 
> know whether I was being had. and then sort of remembered that you 
> associate
> with engineers Well, I work with 'em, but they're structural engineers 
> and then figured I was being being had. Naaah.  I was looking for 
> education, not entertainment.  For a change.
>
> Just in case.  Gutters are for protecting your foundation and lower
> siding from roof run off, not for protecting the roof, evee or 
> soffits. I'm not worried about that stuff. What I AM worried about is 
> whether having taken the goddam 5 year-old copper gutters of my 
> reslated house in order to keep the ice from knocking the gutters off 
> (as they did one year), I'm getting ice damming anyway in the places 
> where there are lots of icicles.
> They are handy for keeping rain off your head at a door way, but
> that's not a preservation issue...unless the person is the maintenance
> guy and you want to keep him healthy. Or one's spousal unit. Its nice 
> to keep visiting dignitaries, like architects dry too! Always an 
> important consideration,  especially in the case of highly dignified 
> architects like myself.
>
> If your gutters are hung too close to the roof edge and with too little
> slope, they will collect snow and ice and hold it against your roof
> edge and damage the roofing and the materials at the roof edge. This 
> may have been the case in the original installation, but as I say, one 
> year we had a lot of ice which nearly tore the gutters off in a  few 
> places, and rather than paying through the nose to get them 
> reinstalled, I decided to leave them off altogether once they were 
> removed, and they are stored under the front porch just in case. It 
> looks like an ice dam and it has the same affect, but its not, its 
> just someone deciding that level looks nicer than sloped...probably 
> someone
> who got A's in design studio. Fornicate them also. (Fortunately they 
> mostly work with Dryvit now.) Serves them right.
>
> If you truly have ice dams, you need to find a way to cool down the
> roof so you don't get a lot of melting when the outside temperature is
> below freezing.  The question is whether I DO have ice dams, dammit! 
> And most of my roof is insulated, including the areas where icicles 
> form.
>
> Snow on the roof is a good thing.  (In the
>
> winter...you got winter in New Jersey?)
>
>
> Yes, we have goddam winter in New Jersey.  Why do you think I spend 
> every winter kicking myself for ever having left the palm trees and 
> beaches in LA?  I'm a goddam Native Californian, and shouldn't have to 
> put up with this cold and snow and sleet and icy road fecal matter, 
> not to mention jughandle turns and potholes--- and have no one but 
> myself to blame.
>
> Ralph
>
>
>
>