For us with our cheap easy to bend gutters this worked rather quick and easy.
Best way to melt ice in gutters.
Here is what you will need.
Sometimes we resort to using a hammer on the gutter only to pop the ice out.
Snow rakes are usually made of metal with a flat edge.
Hook up a garden hose to the hot water spigot that your washing machine is hooked up to.
Clearing out your gutters 1.
If you re interested check out our tutorial on using roof rakes.
Running a heat cable through your open gutter system.
This is where an ice melt system comes in.
Pull it off with a snow rake.
Lay the hose onto the roof so it crosses the ice dam and overhangs the gutter.
Melt the ice with hot water.
Calcium chloride may be best overall for melting ice dams and will not harm the roof.
2 a bucket bag of calcium chloride ice melt.
The calcium chloride will eventually melt through the snow and ice and create a channel for water to flow down into the gutters or off the roof.
There are two options for heated gutter systems.
In many cases this is an extremely simple and cost effective solution that can help prevent costly water damage to your home.
If necessary use a long handled garden rake or hoe to push it into position.
Fill pantyhose with deicer.
You can try laying the cable on the gutter to melt the ice and pray for warmer days and then keep moving the cable down into the gutter as the ice melt.
Ice shield can be heated with a self regulating heat cable or a constant wattage heat cable.
You can heat an area as small as above an entrance way or an entire gutter run.
1 a few pairs of nylon stockings.
A mastershield heated gutter guard melts ice and eliminates ice dams.
In fact after every heavy snowfall you should use a roof rake to prevent ice dams from even building up.
Simply put and ice melt system heats your gutters keeping that water from refreezing and causing mounds of ice.
Attempting to break up the ice with a hammer this can dent your gutters or cause them to separate from the roof using a hatchet axe or shovel to break up the ice see 1 taking a blowtorch and melting the ice which could cause a fire.