How to Deal With Ice on the Roof

Clean the gutters to remove leaves and other debris. Inspect the roof shingles, and glue down any loose ones with roofing cement. Cut back any tree branches that touch the roof.

Check the attic for gaps in the insulation, and fill them. Prevent heat from escaping from the house to the attic, where the warm air melts the snow above, creating runoff. Avoid inadvertently creating ice dams, which form when the runoff hits the cold eaves and freezes.

Install features on the roof that will activate to melt ice as it forms. Try a professionally installed heated coil system, which zigzags across the eaves. Activate them during an ice or snow storm to keep the ice under control.

Place ice melt sleeves on the roof in areas where snow and ice tend to pile up. Fill up a mesh ice melt sleeve with noncorrosive ice melt, and then tie it off. Position the ice melt sleeve on the roof perpendicular to the gutter. Allow one end of the ice melt sleeve to touch the gutter. The sleeves will prevent ice from forming.

Toss ice melt discs onto icy areas when none of the other preventative methods can reach newly formed ice. Allow the ice melt disc to dissolve and trigger areas of roof ice to melt.