If you’ve got water coming down through your soffits onto your window ,I would guess that you might possibly have water damage in the walls or ceiling in that area. An infrared camara would show any damage .

If you have ice coming off your house like that then you are in dire need of attic insulation.

Natural Resources Canada has a publication called ” Keeping the Heat In”.. It’s available online,very well written ,easy to understand. You may also get one from an Energy Advisor if there any still in business.

Insulation with properly installed insulation stops will reduce these ice dams. I have 22″ of insulation in my attic, can’t find any icicles on my house!!

If you look around at just about every house in PG right now, there are lots of ice dams and icicles. I know that some houses will have them because of insulation issues but there are a lot of well insulated homes that have icicles.

You can put all the fluffy pink stuff you want in an attic. If there isn’t a proper vapour barrier warm air will go right through it.

I’ll echo what others have stated. This could be indicative of an insullation problem. There has to be a lot of heat escaping from your house to create icicles like that. A properly insulated house should have very few if any icicles.

Insulation will help but it won’t fix everything. I had 6 inch bats when I moved in last spring. I blew in another 9″ of the pink stuff on top of that. There are less icicles than I remember last spring but there still is a few. Direct sunlight will cause snow melt even when below zero thus causing icicles.

Lots of insulation is great, but you may still have ice build up if the attic is not properly vented. Unobstructed air inlets at the soffits of each roof slope plus air outlets at or near the peak will ensure that any warm air can escape efficiently.
Adding insulation without considering the ventilation is just a waste of money if you are trying to reduce ice build up on your roof. It is true though that the sun can cause some melting, which will freeze at some point on the roof.
metalman.

In Die Hard II an icicle sure came in handy.

THis time of year the sun’s rays have some power. The days are getting longer and there is a chance that if you have some roof shingles exposed, they will pick up some of that heat and begin melting some of the snow. Sun goes down, air gets cold and you have icicles.
I built my house with the best insulation that money can buy I have never had as much as a single icicle but this year I do on an area exposed to lots of sun during the day.
Lack of insulation does cause some of the issues but it’s not the only cause.