Ice Dam Leak in Minneapolis
Ice dams cause leaks in Minneapolis homes but not usually until later in the ice dam season. I received a call earlier today from a client in Edina with water pouring through her ceiling. The water was coming through a smoke detector (B) and soaking her floor. One interesting but not entirely surprising thing was that the water affected a much larger area than was obvious from below (also showed at location C). Slight cracking in the door frame also indicated water problems (B).
When I looked up I notice a ring of discoloration around the smoke detector (seen in photo, below). The thermal imager revealed a 6′ x 6′ area of wetness around the smoke detector. The client had a hard time understanding why the water had not shown in a larger area until I explained how her ceiling assembly worked. Because there was unconditioned space above the drywall there was also a code required vapor barrier, i.e, plastic sandwiched between the drywall and the ceiling framing. When the ice dam above caused water to back up and leak into the home it collected on top of the ceiling until it found the path of least resistance in the vapor barrier. In this case that was a smoke detector but it is often a light fixture, a vent or a seam in the plastic itself.
A quick look at the thermal image shows a large dark purple area (photo below, point B). This is wetness that has not yet manifested visually from below. It is damage nonetheless and should be repaired.
We take immense pride in being industry leaders in ice dam prevention, insulation and ice dam removal. There isn’t another ice dam removal company in town that has thermal imaging technology in-house or guys like Tom, who are certified geeks in all things relating to home performance technology. Here is an article Steve Kuhl published in the Journal of Light Construction on ice dams, if you feel like digging in to the topic deeper.