REGINA – There’s a lot of ice and snow on the roof of Nick Diiorio’s northwest Regina home.
“Terrible this year, I can’t believe it,” he said. “On the back, the sun hits there and it just about goes away, but then in front, there was about a foot.”
He and his brother spent Good Friday doing what they could to chip it away with shovels. It took a while to do but Diiorio says it is worth all the hard work.
“Now the water can come down, no more problems,” he said with a smile.
But not everyone was able to get to their roof before the melt began.
“There are a lot of people with major issues with a lot of leaking going on right now, major ice damming,” said Rod Hunter, sales manager for Wheatland Roofing.
He suggests homeowners should still try to clear as much ice and snow as possible, or call a professional.
“In some cases the ice dams are too thick to really get the bulk of it off, but you can always chisel some channels into the ice so the water that’s backing up behind it will have a place to run off,” Hunter said. “If you get the water pooling there, you’re really going to have some issues there.”
All that work needs to be done very carefully.
“It’s not an easy task,” said Hunter. “There is always a risk of damaging the shingles as well as the eaves troughs. You want to make sure you’re diligent and careful in those areas.”
It is not just the ice up above that has Reginans on alert. It is also the snow on the ground. As the temperatures fall overnight, the melting snow turns once again to ice. Moose Jaw paramedic Ray Francis has seen all sorts of injuries caused from slips and falls.
“Long bone injuries, fractures, dislocations, even some brain trauma from hitting their head as they go down,” he said.
Francis says doing simple things like putting salt on sidewalks can go a long way to avoid injury.
“The best ways to prevent it are by stepping around those ice patches or avoiding them and wearing that proper footwear,” he explained.
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