A very important question to know the answer to before hiring a company for ice dam removal is, do ice dam steamers have triggers? We hope that you have found this page because you are doing research prior to having ice dams removed from your roof. If you are reading this because a company came and did your ice dam removal with a trigger gun, then we assume you were not happy. So, do ice dam steamers have a trigger? In most cases NO, a low pressure steamer designed for ice dam removal will usually never have a trigger on the gun that the user needs to squeeze to start and stop the flow. Most low pressure steamers will have an open gun without a trigger. If someone shows up on your job with a trigger gun you can be pretty darn sure it’s a pressure washer! Do not let them on your roof!
Here is the science behind our opinion on trigger guns. On any device used to generate steam or hot water there is a burner. If the trigger is released the flow stops and the burner goes out and the fluid goes into bypass. This bypass mode cools down the temperature and drops it below acceptable conditions to spray on a roof. If the user releases the trigger even for a short period of time and then squeezes the trigger again and gets close to the roofing material with “cool” temperate spray it then can do damage. The spray will lose temperature and the once atomized spray energy becomes dangerous again. This is the reason we do not approve of triggers on ice dam steaming equipment in IDSAFE.
Call IDSAFE # 612-460-0474 or contact us today if you need help with a question or if you need help finding our members in your area.