We live in a reasonably heavy winter snowfall area in an 1850s 3-storey house with a very steep main roof and valleys where later, lower additions join. This summer we replaced a very old, ratty but still functional standing seam metal roof with beautiful new stone-covered metal "cedar shake" shingles from Deccra; the work was done by experienced, reputable metal roofers who have worked with this product before. (Were not house-handy people, so we try to hire professionals to help keep our old house in decent shape, and we thought we were doing the right thing to avoid water damage by replacing the old metal roof which was beginning to look ready to fail in places.)

After living in this house for 17 years without a problem, now, after every snowfall and for weeks later, even when no snow remains on the roof, we have a brand-new problem of water steadily coming through in at least two places: one attic valley where it runs down an inside beam of an addition-roof, and one attic knee-wall where it finds its way into a second-story window frame and has damaged the wall in that room and in the room below. Our roofers say the cause must be ice-dams from heat-loss, which must have been caused by their removing the old cedar-shakes roof under the old metal roof when they stripped the roof for the new shingles (they added a new plywood base which has a slightly shorter projection than the old metal roof had, new Tyvak "breathable" sheeting, and new wood framing to mount the shingles on). They say the new roof isnÂt leaking, but the ice-dams are making water back up and then come inside the walls of the house.

So they say the answer is more insulation everywhere, but weÂre sceptical, since we havenÂt changed anything else about our living habits and weÂve never had the problem before. Most of the third-story is plaster-finished living space from a century ago so insulation would be hard to place , and we donÂt usually even have any heat on in the third storey or in the second-storey room with the bad leak into the window frame (we do have heat on in a nearby room under the very same slope of roof, but it has not had a problem).

At present weÂre just trying to get through the winter by having the lower few feet of snow shovelled off our new roof soon after a storm; this reduces the amount of water but does not stop it. We have tried to find roofing experts, engineers, etc. without luck to advise us on the problem, since we paid a great deal for this "Cadillac" 50-year plus roof and do not want to spend another winter terrified every time it snows lightly. We are so worried that we are seriously thinking of going to all the expense of having the whole new roof ripped off and replaced by standing seam again, which might dump snow on the nearby sidewalk, but might allow us some peace of mind. We canÂt afford to do this, but neither can we afford to have our house rot around us.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, that when you put a new but similar roof on you changed the environment of your old house so that the old ventilation was no longer adequate? Would just taking off the last few rows of metal shingles and extending the roof projection underneath farther beyond the walls help the front roof-wall area? What would help the valley on a different side?

WeÂre at our wits end, and would appreciate any suggestions anyone might have.