Best Way To Ventilate Attic

Your home air conditioner works very hard to combat extreme attic temperatures.

Best way to ventilate attic. Insulation at least r 38 or more is there for heating and cooling. Soffit vents are intake vents located under the outside eaves of your home. Best ventilation is open soffit venting to a open vented ridge vent. If you don t see any attic vents on the roof or in the eaves you need to add some.

Look at your eaves and roof. What s the ideal way to ventilate an attic. The soffit vents allow convective air movement from the soffits of the residence to the ridge vent. If your home is fitted solely with small gable end vents or a ventilator high in the roof you might want to consider adding soffit vents to increase airflow.

Attic ventilation is a year round strategy to help fight heat buildup in the warmer months and moisture buildup in the colder months. These vents allow outside air to enter the attic at the lowest point of the roof along the underside of the eave. This means an equal amount of intake net free area through vents positioned in the soffit overhang or near the roof s lowest edge and exhaust net free area through vents installed at or near the peak of the roof. If your attic doesn t have a walkway take two small 2 x 4 ft sheets of 1 2 in.

Hot air exhaust vents located at the peak of the roof allow hot air to escape. A hot ceiling tells you that the attic is acting like a solar oven. Even though the outside temperature may be 90 98f it is much cooler than 140 160f. A balanced system of intake vents and exhaust vents helps to remove the moisture before it can build up and condense helping to prevent potentially costly damage to building materials.

It is the recommendation of the ravc that the attic ventilation system always is balanced. Touch your ceiling on a warm sunny day. For this kind of system you need soffit vents and ridge vents. The best form of attic ventilation for your home is a balanced system where the intake vents are separate from the exhaust vents.

In addition insulation baffles must be installed at the point where the attic floor meets the roofline to prevent the attic insulation from migrating into the cavities and restricting the airflow from the soffit vents. After cold weather arrives grab a flashlight and inspect your attic. Ridge vent must me installed per the manufactures instructions. Intake vents located at the lowest part of the roof under the eaves allow cool air to enter the attic.

Plywood to move around on. It can do both. Here are the signs to look for. Here are four signs of an unventilated or under ventilated attic.

The best way to keep insulation cool as well as attic air is to move lots of air through the attic space.