Big ice jam on your roof? Ice jams can build up during the freeze and thaw cycles we see in a Red River Valley Winter. Check out this week on the KFGO Morning Crew, Lars talks Ice Jams and how you can be proactive in preventing them rather than reactive in fixing them.
Learn more about Ice Jam (Ice Dam) in this blog post about Attic Ventilation in Fargo-Moorhead: Soffit Baffles, Power Vents and Ice Dams
Schedule a professional home inspection with Nordic Inspections. Book on our website or call us today at 701.566.1446 ext. 0
What’s Causing The Ice Jam On Your House?Play
October 20th, 2026
(0:00) Good morning, it’s 641. It’s the morning crew, Doug, Robbie, and our friend Lars Knobloch. Good morning, (0:06) Lars.Good morning. Lars Knobloch, and you are on the cutting edge. I mean, you are such a (0:12) visionary home inspector.You’re not just walking up to a house going, well, Dave, (0:17) looks like a roof needs to be replaced. I mean, some of the stuff that you’re working on with AI (0:23) and radon and sewer scoping is cutting edge, Lars. Well, thank you.I mean, we were just (0:31) talking about it before we jumped on air, and one really, really cool thing that we have been (0:37) working on over the last month is to create a heat map over the Fargo-Moorhead region (0:44) and surrounding cities where we have entered every single radon test we have ever done over (0:51) the last 15 years. Wow. So that means I can look at this map and I can see exactly where the high (0:59) radon pockets are and which neighborhoods have high radon.So I could punch in your address, (1:05) Doug, and I can see how many houses we have tested within a half a mile of your house, (1:09) and it will tell me the average in that neighborhood, within a half a mile of your (1:13) house. So it tells you basically what are your chances that your radon is going to be high. (1:18) And there’s many, many neighborhoods, far more than what I first initially had thought.Okay, (1:24) now we want you to go over to Doug’s and try it. We can, yeah. I can punch in both of your (1:29) addresses.Wow, oh my gosh. So that’s really, really interesting information, and we’ll be (1:36) sharing some of this on the show here, you know, this winter. I don’t have any data with me right (1:43) now.But again, it’s so our listeners and your customers know that this is futuristic home (1:51) inspection that you’re doing, Lars. Well, the thing is that most people don’t understand or (1:56) maybe think that it is a problem, and then it doesn’t matter what someone say. We might say, (2:00) oh, in Fargo, the average we see is six.Well, you know, maybe, maybe not that’s going to be (2:08) for my house. But now we’re more specific. Like it’s hard for us to sometimes convince someone (2:14) for how important it is to do a radon test when they buy a house or if they own a house.(2:19) But now we can actually be like, well, you know, in your neighborhood, the average radon levels are (2:24) like 18. Right. And you know, if somebody’s, I mean, this is your forever home.Yeah. You want (2:31) to be checking that. Yeah.Yep. So it’s really cool. I’m not really sure what to do about it yet.(2:38) But what’s cool with it, too, is it just keeps feeding it automatically. So every time we do (2:43) another test, another house, it just feeds automatically into this map. Anyway, I wasn’t (2:48) here to talk about that, but that’s something I’m really pumped up about.Lars Knobloch, Nordic (2:52) Inspections, the topic of the day, ice dams in October. Yeah, that’s bad. Yeah.But now is the (3:01) time to get ready for them. If your house did it before, take that, you know, whatever it is you (3:05) need to do to get it. So it doesn’t happen.That’s right. I mean, we’re going to be in the (3:09) 70s this week. So it should be pretty pleasant temperature to work on your house.Get your (3:15) house ready for for winter. I see, you know, forecast it’s the El Nino is that we’re going (3:23) to get less than average temps. But we might still like in Grand Forks Weather Center, they’re still (3:29) saying we’re going to get, you know, 30, 40 inches of snow, three to seven storms.Right. I mean, (3:36) where we live, we’re going to have snow, we’re going to have cold. We’re still going to have it.(3:39) And then actually, like if you remember a few years back, we had like a fairly mild winter (3:43) with a lot of melting and freezing cycles just naturally happened. And then houses that never (3:49) had ice dams before had ice dam problems and leaks. So like a mild winter with snow (3:57) may not be great for for this.So what what you maybe want to do right now, it’s still not too (4:03) late. And especially if you know that you have ice dam problems every winter, is to try to get (4:10) an insulation contractor out and have them look at the insulation level in your house, (4:15) try to figure out if there’s like pathways where air is leaking through into the attic. Ice dams (4:22) happen when the snow that’s on your roof melts because the roof structure that the snow is (4:29) sitting on warms up from inside.And then, you know, due to warm air leaking into the attic, (4:35) the attic temperature gets warmer. The underside of the roof deck gets warmer. The snow melts.(4:39) It runs out to the eaves and it refreezes there and then it builds up with ice. And now that cycle (4:46) continues. And eventually the block of ice that’s laying along your roof there will cause (4:51) water to dam up and now it’s finding its way underneath the shingles.What’s your thoughts? (4:57) I’ve I’ve seen from time to time I’m like, what is that their cable running on their roof there? (5:02) But yeah, it’s heating wire. What would you call it? What do you call it? Yeah, like a heating cable (5:06) or heat tape. Sure.What do you what’s your thoughts on that? I think sometimes it works. (5:11) OK, but it depends on how bad an ice dam problem you have. OK, I think sometimes it might work, (5:16) but we see also often that it doesn’t.It’s not enough. Sure. Because, I mean, I feel like you’d (5:22) have to have it on all the time then if you don’t want it.Yeah. You know, otherwise it means all (5:26) winter. A couple of inches of ice on there.But what are you coming to see? Air leakage could be (5:30) around like can light. How many of you have installed can light yourself in the attic (5:34) and then not spray formed around the actual can? And then when winter comes, hot air is rising (5:40) through those can lights, causing problems like that or the bathroom fan is terminating (5:46) into the attic or any plumbing vents that goes through the ceiling and into the attic. Air (5:52) leaks through.Make sure you have proper insulation and ventilation. So there’s there’s things you can (5:56) do right now that will prevent you from having problems or maybe reduce the problems that you (6:04) usually have. And I remember there was there was one house.This is many years ago, but there was a (6:13) gutter. There was a gutter that was installed inside above a window. And from the gutter, (6:21) there was a plastic piece of piece of plastic tubing that drain into a sink.So don’t don’t (6:30) don’t let it go to that. Don’t be that person that you’re going to have to put a gutter up, (6:35) you know, above your window to catch the water that leaks in from your ice dam. So you have.(6:40) Yeah, that was like a real thing. And it actually how funny it sounds. You know, (6:46) it actually did a really good job.Well, sure. You know, limiting the damage. But it goes to (6:51) your point of what you’ve taught us is don’t treat the symptom, treat the cause.What’s causing your (6:56) ice dam? And then how can we mitigate that versus, OK, how can we drain the water off? Yes. Yeah. (7:03) You want to be proactive and not reactive and try to be ahead of the game.And this is a good (7:08) opportunity to, you know, we know snow is going to come soon and we know it’s going to get colder. (7:14) Another thing I would say is that actually could cause ice dams. And that is like leaves and debris (7:21) building up in the gutter, clogging the gutter.Now the water has nowhere to go. Right. And I (7:27) would say a lot of the leaves now have have fallen.And this weekend might be a great weekend to check (7:34) out your gutters and clean them out as well and get ready for that, because sometimes we see ice (7:39) dams just forming because the gutters were never clean. Yeah. No.Great point. Great point. That is (7:43) Lars Knobloch.He is Nordic Inspections. And folks, if you need to get your home inspected (7:49) before you sell it, if you’re looking at buying a home, you want to get radon checked, mold checked. (7:53) Lars Knobloch, how can they get on your project list? Give us a call 701-566-1446 or go to our (8:01) NordicCompaniesInc.com to schedule your inspection there.Thanks, Lars.