Roof Snow Removal in Dundee, Benson and South Omaha

The older ones, by name. The City of Omaha's own preservation records explain how they joined the city: Omaha annexed Dundee and South Omaha in 1915, and Benson and Florence in 1917. Dundee had incorporated as a village in 1894. North of downtown, Minne Lusa is a National Register historic district of small and mid sized homes, most of them built between 1915 and 1927.

This page is about roof snow and ice dams on houses of that age. Snow removal anywhere else in the city, and everything about how the work is done, is on the main roof snow removal page.

Old enough to have seen a hundred winters. The National Register nomination for the Dundee/Happy Hollow Historic District says Dundee's homes were generally built between 1886 and the early 1920s, from Queen Anne houses to bungalows, Craftsman houses and Period Revivals, with duplexes, rowhouses and apartments along the old streetcar lines on 49th and 50th streets. Minne Lusa's nomination counts 708 properties, 541 of them contributing to the district, mostly bungalows and Craftsman houses, 39 percent of them under 1,200 square feet.

Across the whole city, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (2019 to 2023) puts the median year Omaha's housing was built at 1972. About 18 percent of the city's homes were built before 1940 and about 62 percent before 1980.

Two things to ask about before a heavy winter. The first is the roof's underlayment: Omaha's residential code now marks ice barrier underlayment as required, the membrane the Department of Energy describes as an extra layer against leaks when ice dams form, but a roof has whatever went on it the last time it was replaced. The second is the attic: an ice dam starts when heat leaking up from the house warms the upper roof, the University of Minnesota Extension explains, and an attic is only as sealed and insulated as the last work done on it.

Neither question is answered by the year on the deed. A free inspection answers both for your house, and the attic ventilation guide explains the fix in the order the Department of Energy and ENERGY STAR give it: air sealing first, then insulation.

Omaha's residential code, Table R301.2(1), designs houses for a ground snow load of 25 pounds per square foot and a winter design temperature of minus 3 degrees F, and marks ice barrier underlayment as required. The table's note explains that a city marks it required where there is a history of local damage from ice damming. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normal at Eppley Airfield is 27.1 inches of snow a year, with February the snowiest month at 7.8 inches.

When the trouble is ice at the eaves rather than snow on the slopes, our crews steam it off. Steam melts the dam where it is frozen to the shingles and opens a channel for the water behind it, so nothing is chipped or hammered off a roof that may be older than the street in front of it. The ice dam removal page covers what to do if water is already coming in, and how to keep the next one from forming.

Our crews work from our Omaha headquarters at 5634 S 85th Cir Ste 204. Office hours are 9 to 5, and during storms and emergencies we take night and weekend calls. Call us at (402) 291-8888, or see the Omaha page for everything else we do in the city. Once the snow is off, the roof, the gutters and the siding are checked in one free visit, with photos and an estimate in writing.