Winter is being such a bitch this year, particularly on my roof. Granted there are many people in the neighbourhood who have it worse: it seems on every street there are houses missing so much of their eavestroughs that I can see their rafters from the street. And trust me, no one wants their rafters showing.

In an effort to not be one of them, I’ve tried a couple of different methods to relieve my roof of the eight inches of ice that is threatening to pull down what’s left of my eavestroughs. Chipping at it didn’t work – it’s far too solid. So I figured, why not throw some salt up there? As soon as we have a nice day, maybe it’ll melt from the top rather than the bottom as it has done for the past couple of weeks, causing the residual water to come in around my window frames – inside the house.

The salt, however, seems to be rather picky when it comes to the roof. It melts the ice just fine on the sidewalk.

After putting almost a full ten pounds of salt on my roof, what do I have?

This, first of all:

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It would seem the salt has created some interesting formations out of my icicles.

What else?

Everything dripping off my roof is crystalised. I have white splattered all over my exterior walls, I have white steps at the front of my house, and best of all, I have a saltwater cascade dripping down my windows and onto my hardwood floors. And still, I have eight inches of ice on my roof.

The good news? The mold that I’m positive is growing on the other side of my drywall will be well preserved.