Brooks Management

In keeping with our mission to preserve and not have to restore (preservation not restoration), we are going to touch base on one of New England’s most common winter problems: the ice dam. In the name of saving money, some of us have done more damage to our homes than good. The costs of living are constantly going through the roof, and we as individuals try to do all we can to cut costs and yet be green minded.

We know that heat loss is a bad thing and that most of the heat in a home is lost through the attic. As a solution to reduce heat loss, we hire contractors or go to the local home improvement store and buy more insulation for the attic. In theory, this looks and sounds like a great idea, but it could actually be very detrimental to your unit’s health.

Here is where the problem arises. Homes and condominiums in New England need to keep their roofs cold in the winter. The best way to do this is to keep a constant flow of outside air in the underside of the roof. When we place more insulation into the attic we often look down into our eaves and can see daylight. We then call one of those aforementioned contractors or put even more insulation in ourselves. In turn, we cut off that well designed air flow, then this creates the ice dam we were trying to avoid.

Most condominium documents declare the roof as the association’s responsibility to maintain or repair.  In light of this, we don’t think about it until there is damage, or worse, an injury.  We must remember that proactive prevention is the key to saving us all some of that well earned money.

In conclusion, when we are constantly blurring the jurisdictions of government and society it is much more difficult to define the responsibilities of the association versus the homeowner. When pondering this I came to the conclusion that we need to go back to the original documents we agreed to in the beginning.

Imagine if our Congress went back and followed our countries founding document.  Isn’t it wonderful when simple annoyances like an ice dam can make us think on the greater good?