How to Protect Your Roof Through a Michigan Winter

Michigan roofs work harder than roofs almost anywhere in the country. Between Lake Effect snow, repeated freeze-thaw cycles, and February ice storms, a single bad winter can take five years off a perfectly healthy roof. The good news: most winter damage is preventable with a 30-minute checklist run before the first big snow.

Before the First Snowfall

Walk your property and check four things from the ground with binoculars or a phone zoom: missing or curled shingles, clogged gutters, branches overhanging the roof, and obvious sag at the eaves. Anything you spot now is cheaper to fix than it will be in January.

• Clear gutters and downspouts so meltwater has somewhere to go.
• Trim branches at least six feet back from the roof plane.
• Replace damaged or missing shingles before they catch wind.
• Check attic ventilation — both intake (soffit) and exhaust (ridge).

The Real Cause of Ice Dams

Most homeowners think ice dams are a gutter problem. They aren't — they're an attic problem. When heat escapes from a poorly insulated attic, it warms the underside of the roof deck, melts the bottom layer of snow, and that meltwater refreezes when it hits the cold eaves. The ice dam grows from there, and eventually water backs up under your shingles.

The fix is almost never "more gutter heat tape." The fix is sealing attic air leaks, topping up insulation to at least R-49, and making sure your soffit-to-ridge ventilation is actually moving cold air across the roof deck.

When to Call a Roofer

Don't wait for the leak. Call us if you see any of these:

• Icicles longer than a foot hanging off the eaves.
• Visible sag or ripples in the snow pack on the roof.
• Water stains appearing on ceilings or in upper-floor corners.
• Daylight visible through the roof deck from inside the attic.

We do free no-obligation inspections all three Michigan winters. Catch it in November and we fix it for a few hundred dollars. Catch it in March and you're rebuilding a ceiling.