Last year we had record snow falls in February and March. In one 6-week time period I raked my roof 8 times. My garage roof at one point had 3 feet of snow on it and we had a forecast for rain. I was tempted to leave it, it would be nice to have a new garage, but I raked it anyway. Even having raked my roof on the house, I still had water damage on the living room ceiling. It wasn’t that bad and only took a few days to repair and paint but man, I don’t like letting winter win! In 2018, I hired a handyman to put heat tape on one side of my family room and up into an adjacent valley. By this spring most of the heat tape was hanging on off my roof, due to poor installation. I hired Highland electric to add two outdoor outlets for my planned heat tape installation on the front of the house. I asked for a bid to install the heat tape, which they gave me. It was $7,500, whoa. Since my roof overhangs are 10 feet off the ground, I decided to install them myself. It would be another matter if I owned a full 2 story house, I don’t love heights or sloped roofs. I measured the length of the roof and gutters needing heat tape and counted the number of downspouts as well. I then went online and called manufacturers of heat tape. I needed to ensure I bought enough. Once I gave the dimensions to the guy he was able to recommend the length I needed plus he gave me instructions on how to do it correctly. Most importantly, do not allow the heat tape to overlap or touch itself, if it comes in contact with itself it can start a fire. It took a couple weekends to complete the installation. The most difficult part was the fact I have leaf guards on my gutters, meaning I had to take them apart to heat the gutters and downspouts. Not only that but I also had to figure out how to heat the leaf guard so the melted water would fall into the heated gutter. I think I figured it out, we’ve had snow and I can hear water running down my down spouts when the heat tape is on. The total cost for the heat tape and materials was a little over $300.00. Since I had never done that type of installation before I really didn’t want to start, it was a pain, yet I am happy to have it completed and saved some substantial installation costs. Related Articles:
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