Spring Maintenance Check

It may not seem like it after yesterday's storm, but spring is here, and warmer weather is right around the corner. Now is the time to think about what that means for your house (or your company's building), if you haven't done it already. Here's a list to help you out:

Screens

Last year there was the Zika virus. With luck, the worst thing we'll get if biting flies and mosquitoes come inside will be uncomfortable bites, but it's far better to be prepared. It doesn't take long to be sure that all your screens are in place and in good condition.

Roof

What did your roof look like this winter? Did you have problems with ice dams? Did the snow melt in a geometric pattern? Can you see any dips or wavy lines in your roof? If you answered yes to any of these, either your roof or your attic needs work before it sees another winter.

Structural Check

It's always a good idea, especially with newer houses, to do a quick walk-through in the springtime to check for any structural damage that may have occurred over the winter. Signs to watch for are windows or doors that don't open and close easily, new cracks in walls (including foundation walls), and groups of nails that have come partially out of place.

Your Cooling Bill

The air is chilly and there's snow on the ground, which means that now is the perfect time to take care of your air conditioning needs for the summer. If you wait until you need it, there may be availability issues. And this way, you may be able to decide what you want and then wait for a sale. Two more important factors to consider are insulation and windows.

Outdoor Living

Now is also a good time to get started on planning patios, porches, decks and other outdoor living spaces you'll want to use this summer.

Thanks,

NH Construction

How to Prevent Ice Dams

It's going to snow tomorrow. Lots of snow is going to pile up on roofs all over New Hampshire, and

at the bottoms of a lot of those roofs, ice dams are going to form. And every single one of those ice dams could have been prevented. Here's how:

The cause of ice dams is heat from indoors leaking out and causing some of the snow that's on the roof to melt. This melted snow runs down the roof until it hits the eaves (the overhang, where suddenly there's no heat escaping and everything's cold again) and quickly refreezes. The process continues until there's so much ice built up on top of the eaves that it keeps snow from sliding off. And that's not the worst part. As the ice dam grows, it can creep under shingles. Then when it eventually melts, it can leak into your house, causing water damage.

The best way to prevent ice dams in the long run? Make sure your roof is properly ventilated and your attic is properly insulated.

The best thing to do now to prevent ice dams in tomorrow's storm? If your roof is prone to getting ice dams, rake the eaves off periodically to prevent buildup. If buildup occurs, fill a nylon stocking with magnesium chloride ice melt. (Make sure it's magnesium chloride so you don't damage your roofing materials.) Toss the stocking onto the edge of your roof where the ice is forming and let it melt it off.

Tomorrow's expected to be windy, though, so with any luck, your roof will stay clear.

How to Choose the Best Ice Melt and Traction Products

There's no one best ice melt or traction product that's best for every home and every use. What you should get depends on a lot of factors, including what you need to accomplish, your building

materials, and even the lay of your landscaping. Here's the breakdown:

Salts:

Not all salts are the same, and it's important to read labels when buying them. Generally speaking, your choices will be sodium chloride (table salt), calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. The great advantage to salt is that it lowers the freezing point of water. In other words, it melts ice. The downside is that salt is corrosive. The different types of salt are corrosive to different materials, so make sure the salt you buy is approved for the material you plan to put it on. And unless you have someplace for the melted ice to go, you could end up with a pool of sub-freezing salt-water or slush, which can be at least as dangerous as ice.



Sand:

The great thing about sand is it doesn't wash away as easily as salt because it doesn't dissolve in water. It provides excellent traction and you don't have to worry about anyone slipping into a puddle and getting their foot soaked in negative-fifteen-degree water. It's also completely natural and noncorrosive. The downside is it doesn't dissolve, so it can clog up storm drains.


Roofs:

Looking for ice melt for your roof? Get calcium chloride. More about that next time in our post about ice dams.

Beyond Replacement Windows: How to Keep the Heat In

There's no doubt about it: replacing your old leaky windows with modern thermal replacement windows will save you a lot of money in heating bills over the life of your home or workplace. In fact, they'll pay for themselves pretty quickly and then start putting money back in your bank account. But once your new, energy-efficient windows are installed, what then? Is that all you can do? No, not at all. In fact, you can further cut not only your fuel bills but your carbon footprint, too.

Even modern energy-efficient windows allow some heat loss, so it's never a good idea to leave them bare in the wintertime. Here are some smart steps you can take to protect your pocket and your planet:

1. Make sure your windows are locked. Even if you're not concerned about security, thieves aren't the only concern here. Unlocked windows aren't shut tightly, which means warm air is leaking out and drafts are getting in when the wind blows.
2. Choose a window treatment that provides good insulation. Drapes and window quilts are often good choices; curtains almost never are. Be sure the entire window will be covered with no gaps where the heat can escape. Some come with space blanket technology which reflects heat on the room side while absorbing it on the
   window side.
3. Pay special attention to the placement of the rod and how your window treatments will hang. Many rod arrangements place the window treatment away from the window, allowing airflow behind it. That's okay for summer, but it completely defeats our purpose here, so be sure not to get that kind. If you have trouble finding something suitable at your local home improvement or home decorating store, try a solar products store or website.
4. Want a money-saving shortcut? Robe hooks, a cafe rod, clip rings and a comforter make an attractive and cozy alternative.

Is Your House Ready for Winter?

We still have some warm days, but the weather is changing, and before we know it, it will be winter again. Now is the time to start preventing heat loss this winter. A well-prepared house means a warmer and safer family, lower heating bills, less air pollution and and a smaller contribution to climate change. Take a few minutes and make sure your house is ready. Here's what to look for:

The roof:  

On the outside, there should be no missing or damaged shingles. The lines of the roof should look straight, with no sags or bumps in it. On the inside, look for signs of water damage.

The door and window frames:

Look for cracks or gaps that can let in a draft. Home improvement stores sell draft detectors if you want to pay for them, but generally speaking, old window frames that look like this:

will be drafty until they are wrapped in metal trim like this:

And while we're on the subject,

Windows:

Make sure your house is equipped with thermal windows with low-e glass.

Insulation:

Be sure your house has enough insulation to keep your heat inside this year. Check the attic, the walls and the basement.

Foundation:

Look inside and outside and check for large or new cracks.

Looks Like We're in for Another Cold Winter

The Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting another cold, snowy winter this year.

We wish we could tell you that you suffered enough last winter, so you're going to be rewarded with a mild winter this year. Unfortunately, the predictions are saying the opposite. Maybe it's like sports: win one challenge, and your reward is the chance to train for an even bigger one.

But if you're thinking of resigning yourself to another winter full of ice dams and frozen pipes, think again. Most of those problems don't actually come from cold temperatures or lots of snow. They happen when houses aren't ready for New Hampshire winters. The good news is that if a house is built right, you won't need to shovel the roof or worry about structural damage, even if we get as much snow as we did last year.

The bad news is that the majority of houses built in New Hampshire are not built like that. Sometimes this is due to the ignorance of the builders, but more often it's because they knew better and still chose to cut corners to save costs.

What can you do to help your house weather the weather this winter? There are just four major things to address:

• The roof. Make sure the sheathing and the shingles are in good shape. Check the rafters to ensure that they are close enough together and thick enough for your roof type and slope, and that none of them is cracked or rotting. Replace anything that's damaged or worn out, and shore up the structure if you need to.
• Strength of the structure. Be sure that your strong roof has a strong house and foundation to sit on. Remember that the purpose of all the structural elements of the house is to safely transfer that weight to the earth.
• Sealing up drafts. A lot of times, frozen pipes and other winter damage is due to leaks where warm air rushes out of the house or cold air blows in. Look for little cracks and holes, especially around doors and windows, and where the main house meets the foundation.
• Insulation. From the foundation to the roof, there's no substitute for insulation. Insulation, along with ventilation, prevents ice dams and dangerous icicles. It reduces material stress due to expansion and contraction, and it can protect your pipes from freezing.

While every house has different needs, most winter issues fall under one of these categories.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

How Adding a Three-Season Porch Could Save You Money in the Long Run

Three-season porches make a whole lot of sense. They add living space for a minimum of expense.

They give you a place to enjoy the fresh air in summer without being baked by the sun or eaten by mosquitoes or horseflies. And they let you have a semi-outdoor living experience far sooner in the spring and later in the fall than you could get otherwise. But did you know they can also reduce your winter heating bills?

A good three-season porch typically has easy-to-operate, screened windows on three sides, with the original exterior wall of the house making the fourth wall. The floor and roof are tightly built, so that when the windows are closed, there are no drafts.

Here are two ways a three-season porch can save heating fuel:

Passive Solar Heat

Direct sunlight coming through plain glass (glass that's not tinted or treated with a reflective coating) can provide a surprising amount of heat. If the angle of the sun's rays is too steep to come directly, and it reflects off snow or ice in your yard first, that works, too.

To take advantage of the passive solar potential of your three-season porch, follow these tips:

• Locate it where the winter sun will hit the windows. Usually, this means the south side of your house.
• Make sure there are no evergreen trees in the way that will shade the windows in the winter.

To keep your porch cooler in the summer:

• Give it a roof with a large overhang. The sun is closer to the horizon in the winter, so a large overhang will let winter sunshine will in but keep midday summer sunshine out.
• Locate any kiddie pools and other shiny objects where they won't reflect the sun's rays onto the windows.
• Don't cut down deciduous trees (trees that shed their leaves in the fall), unless they are endangering the house in some way. Deciduous trees are nature's air conditioners. They keep your house cool in summer, and actually clean the air while they're at it!

Airlock

When you think of airlocks, you probably think of submarines, or maybe even spaceships. But airlocks are important in our houses, too. When you open your door on a winter day and go outside, a lot of warm air goes with you. But it doesn't have to. Old-time New Englanders never used to use a single door in the winter, because it wasted heat. You need to trap the air when you go in and out of your house, so the heat isn't sucked outside, and a three-season porch is a good way to do that. Other options are mudrooms and enclosed breezeways.

To use your three-season porch as an airlock in the winter, always close one door tightly before you open the other one. Teach your children to make sure the last person has come through the first door and shut it tightly before anyone opens the second door. Once they get the hang of it, it should start to come naturally.

Could your house benefit from a three-season porch?

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

With Storage Sheds, New Hampshire Residents Have to Be Picky

In some climates, even the flimsiest sheds will do the job. All you need is a few sheets of metal to

We custom-built this shed to look like the customers' house.
See the whole album here.

keep the rain off and enough of a structure to keep would-be thieves looking for easier targets. But we don't have that kind of climate here in New Hampshire.

In New Hampshire, storage sheds have to stand up to a whole winter's snow load, year after year. That means your typical pre-built metal shed isn't going to work here. It might last a year, if the winter is unusually mild or you stay home every time it snows to keep it shoveled off. There's one in every circle of friends, though: that one bargain-hunter who saves a pile of cash with a great deal on a storage shed - only to see the roof collapse under the first heavy snowfall.

It's a simple concept, and maybe it should be obvious: Any building in New Hampshire has to be tough enough to handle New Hampshire weather. Here's what you should look for:

• The foundation: If your shed is permanent, put it on a concrete slab with footings that go at least four feet into the ground. That will get them below the frost line and prevent damage from frost heaves. 
• The roof: Be sure the slope is steep enough to keep the snow sliding off, or the whole structure is strong enough to hold it. Think like an engineer. Start at the top and imagine how the weight of snow would be transferred from one part to the next until it reaches the foundation.

You can either buy a shed already built, build it yourself, or have one built for you. Of course, if you're ordering your shed (or a DIY kit/plans) from a supplier outside of New England, you'll need to make sure it's suitable for our climate. Unfortunately, the same goes for local suppliers, and even local builders, as well. As with any building project, there's no substitute for doing your homework and knowing what you're getting.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

Did This Winter's Weather Make Your Roof Leak?

A lot of New Hampshire home and business owners have seen their roofs damaged from the weather this winter. Heavy snow loads have weakened and even broken a lot of rafters. Leaks caused by ice dams have created a lot of water damage. And plenty of shingles and gutters need to be replaced.

But none of this is the fault of the weather alone. Believe it or not, a well-built New Hampshire roof can handle the kind of winter we just had with no problem. It's only roofs that were in need of repair, or built too cheaply to begin with, that had any trouble.

If your roof did get beaten up by the weather this winter, the bad news is that it was already not in great shape before the snow came. But the good news is that you can prevent these problems in future years, even if we get the same kind of weather.

The ideal New Hampshire roof has:

 

 A strong structure and a pitch that fits the climate

Have you ever wondered why a Roman villa has a flat roof, but an alpine chalet has a steep one? It's not just a matter of culture. Steep roofs not only shed more snow, but can hold a lot more weight, too. How steep a New Hampshire roof needs to be depends on how strongly built it is. Or, to put it another way, how strongly it needs to be built depends on how steep it is.

Plenty of insulation

No matter how strong your roof is, it still isn't likely to make it through a winter like this one without damage unless it's properly insulated. Roof insulation does more than just help reduce your heating bills and your carbon footprint; it's an essential part of the roof. Inadequate insulation can result in ice dams, excessive icicles, damaged shingles and leaks. And of course, leaks cause their own chain of water damage and rot.

Adequate venting

Leaks are not the only thing to cause dripping ceilings, water spots and rotting in a house. This water may not even be coming from outdoors if your roof is not properly vented. The air naturally has some moisture in it, and activities like cooking and breathing add even more. Without sufficient venting, this moisture will collect and destroy your house.

The Right Way to Handle Snow and Ice on Your Roof

 

Modern roofing materials are manufactured to stand up to decades of rough weather. But they are not

meant to be scraped with shovels or hit with hammers.

Don't try to clear all the snow off: leave half an inch still on there. Asphalt shingles, especially, are very brittle in the winter, and you can easily damage them and create roof leaks. But even if that doesn't happen, scraping the shingles will take years off their life. If you have rubber roofing, then a little hit from the corner of your shovel could gouge a hole. The point is to take most of the weight off and relieve the stress on the rafters.

It may be tempting to try to physically remove all the ice from your roof, but that would tear it up. The best plan of attack is to break the ice off below the eaves to remove most of the weight, and then use calcium chloride to melt channels into the ice and let it fall off by itself. Make sure you are using calcium chloride, not rock salt or magnesium chloride.

When to Call in a Contractor

 

Sometimes hiring a contractor is less expensive than doing the job yourself. For example, Ice dams and icicle clusters can be very heavy and fall in unpredictable directions. Chipping off roof ice is a lot like felling a tree: it takes a lot of training and experience to learn how to control the fall. Not hiring a professional in this case could cost you a window, or even your life.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

Should You Shovel Your Roof?

Roof shoveling is a cold, hard job, and nobody wants to do it unless it's necessary. But you don't want to risk having your roof collapse on you, either. So how do you know whether your roof needs it?

There are a few factors to consider:

• The depth of the snow on the roof
• The size of the roof
• The strength of the roof
• The pitch (steepness) of the roof
• Ice dams

Weight and Strength

It's pretty intuitive: how much snow a roof can take depends on how strong it is. Smaller roofs will naturally be stronger, per square foot, than larger roofs. This is because there's a shorter distance between the uprights (walls or porch support posts, for example). So each rafter has a shorter span and can hold more weight per square foot without sagging.

Structural Strength

How much weight your roof can take will also depend on how beefy the rafters are, how far apart they were placed, whether any of them are starting to rot, and whether the house was put together correctly. Modern construction standards call for rafters to be made of at least 2x8 lumber (ideally, 2x10) and be placed 16 inches apart.

Roof Pitch

If you got good grades in geometry, you can probably visualize how your roof's pitch affects its strength. Generally speaking, the steeper the roof is, the more its weight is transferred down to the outer walls. So a steeper roof can handle more snow without endangering its rafters.

Ice Dams

Ice dams can occur when a roof is not sufficiently insulated. Heat leaks out through the roof and melts the snow that's sitting on top of it. That melted snow runs to the edge of the roof and starts to drip off. But since it's no longer being heated, it turns to ice. Over time, that ice can build up and even crawl under the shingles and lift them up. Then when it melts on a sunny day, it usually causes water damage inside your home.

If your roof has an ice dam problem, then you need to remove the snow before it can melt and ruin your roof, your ceiling and more. And, of course, you should insulate your roof or attic to fix the problem.

When in Doubt, Shovel

It may not be fun, but it's easier to shovel your roof when it doesn't need it than to rebuild your house after the roof collapses.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

New Hampshire Homewners, Is Your Roof Trying to Tell You Something?

Next time you're outside, take a look at your roof. Is there snow on it? If you can see where the rafters are by the snow melt pattern, then your house has a heat-loss problem. Or if the snow cover has obvious bare spots, that's a sign of trouble, too.


There are three common roof snow melt patterns:

1. Bare spots. A bare spot in an otherwise snow-covered roof means that heat is leaking out in that location. That probably means you have a hole in your insulation, or that your insulation in that place is compromised in some way. You may even have a family of squirrels living in your attic.
2. Melting between the rafters. If you can see lines of snow over your rafters, then your roof is under-insulated. It's okay if the snow slides off the roof, blows off or melts off with the heat of the sun. But if the snow is disappearing between the rafters and not on top of them, it's not the sun that's melting it. You're paying to heat the sky.
3. Melting on top of the rafters. If you see snow everywhere except on your rafters, then you have a problem called thermal bridging. Thermal bridging occurs when heat conducts out through solid material. Your roof may have plenty of insulation between the rafters, but if the rafters themselves are conducting enough heat to melt snow, your insulation's not doing you a lot of good.

If your roof shows any of these signs of heat loss, it's probably past time to call your contractor. Most homeowners find that the cost of the work is more than made up for in energy savings.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction