It’s snowing! The first snow of the year is exciting for children, yet it can be a less pleasant experience for adults. Yes, you love the beauty of the snow and the coziness that it brings, but ice and snow season also has ramifications for your home. Before and during the winter months, you need to make sure that your home is ready to manage the winter, even if it comes in abruptly with a sudden heavy snowfall.

What Happens To Your House When It Snows

Your home is a system, and that system is working hard when it’s snowy and cold outside. Your furnace or electric heaters work to heat up your home, keeping it at the right temperature even when you’re not there. Your gutters are working hard as well, moving water from the roof to the ground. However, when it freezes or when it’s snowing, you need to make sure that your gutters can do their job. As it begins to snow, the snow that falls on your roof may initially turn to water due to the gentle heat of the roof. This water flows into your gutters and away from your house. However, as the snow increases, there is so much that it can’t all turn to water, and it begins to accumulate on top of your house. You end up with a layer of warmer snow at the base and a thick layer of snow that sits on your roof.

Heavy Snow Can Make Gutters Sag

How does this layer of snow interact with your home drainage systems? During heavy snow, layers of snow and ice can accumulate in your gutters. This can damage the gutter system, particularly if it has older brackets or fewer structures that attach it to the house. The gutters can begin to pull away from the house, sag, and warp.

Snow Can Lead to Ice Dams

Poor roof insulation can also combine with heavy snowfall to cause problems for your roof. If your roof leaks heat, the snow that falls on your house will warm and melt when it touches your roof. If this water can’t get into your gutters because they’re clogged with snow and ice, it stays on your roof and moves into small cracks, causing your roof to leak. You can’t stop the snow from falling, but you can insulate your roof. This summer project helps your roof manage a sudden snowfall without experiencing serious leaks.

How Can You Prepare For Heavy Snow?

When it’s just about winter, you have so much to plan, but one of your key elements of home planning is a simple gutter clean out. Check your gutters for debris before it begins to snow so that when the snow hits your roof and begins to melt it has a ready escape route into your gutters and down the drain. If you don’t want to check your gutters frequently, consider installing gutter covers. These covers allow water to drain into your gutters while sending debris off the side of your roof.

You can also prepare your gutters for snowfall by installing a gutter heating system. Adding a simple heating system to your gutters helps the snow melt and helps water in the gutters stay in its liquid state. This means that when the snow gets to your gutters, the heat in the gutters will turn it to water and allow it to flow down the drains and away from your house.

Winter is a challenging time of year for your home drainage systems. Make your winter simpler by installing gutter covers and heating systems that allow water to drain easily from your roof, no matter what the weather. Contact Harry Helmet to learn more about how Helmet Heat can make your winter easier.

Written by Del Thebaud