A clear path
back to dry.

What a Buffalo winter does to a building

Almost everything we attend between December and April traces back to one of three mechanisms, and none of them is a burst pipe in the way people picture it.

The first is the ice dam. Heat escaping into a roof melts the underside of the snow, the meltwater runs down to an eave that sits over unheated space, and it refreezes there into a ridge. Each cycle adds to it and backs standing water up behind it, and asphalt shingles are built to shed water running downhill rather than to hold water sitting still. The stain that appears on an upstairs ceiling in February is that, not a hole in the roof.

The second is the freeze, and the damage arrives on the thaw rather than the freeze itself. A line that froze while a property was empty splits, and nothing happens until the ice clears and the pressure comes back. Vacant uppers, unheated additions and properties standing empty over a winter are where this does real harm, because it runs until somebody opens the door.

The third is water arriving at the foundation. Frozen ground sheds meltwater rather than absorbing it, so a thaw sends it to the footing all at once. In this housing stock that meets stone and early block walls built to breathe rather than to seal, and sump systems that were sized for ordinary rain.

The south towns get more of the first two because the lake-effect bands put down more snow there. Properties near Cazenovia and Ellicott creeks face something different again: ice jams and high water, which is outdoor water and is handled as contaminated regardless of how clean it looks.