Venting your home with the right type of ventilation system will help you to live in a healthier environment and help you to reduce cooling costs. There are other reasons that a good attic ventilation system is necessary.
Moisture is your enemy at least as far as your house goes and without the proper ventilation, you are inviting condensation build-up. How’s about preventing roof rot? Preventing ice dams from building up and lowering your cooling costs? All very valid reasons to make sure that you have attic venting.
Things to Look For
If you are not sure if your home could benefit from a ventilation system go up into your attic on a sunny warm day, if the ceiling in your attic is hot to the touch it means that your roof is not only keeping the heat in it is radiating heat to the rest of the house. Think of it like a solar cap on your housekeeping all that heat in and redistributing it down into your house.
Look for evidence of condensation on the rafters in the attic. If your attic is not vented correctly then the warm air from the house in the winter will rise and form little droplets of condensation on rafters and beams.
Take a look at the roof during the wintertime. If you notice dams of ice built up on the roof after a snowfall then your attic is not vented correctly. What happens on those snowy days is the warm air that is heating your house up causes the snow to melt and freeze over without the proper ventilation.
Worst Case Scenarios
If you do not have the proper attic vents/ roof vents installed than you are at risk for some very serious damage to your home. The constant cycle of hot and cold inside the home will cause condensation to build upon the main roof trusses inside the house and potentially rot.
You also risk the shingles on your home rotting as well from the constant build-up of ice than the melting ice cycle during the wintertime.
What You Can Do
Call an expert! Installing the proper ventilation in your home is something that you will need an expert to do. An expert from Attics Plus can come and check out your space and make recommendations to improve or install a ventilation system.