Protecting Your Home with Roof Vents provided by ServiceMagic.com.
The relationship between the roof and attic is one that many homeowners don't understand. Some homeowners have heard that their roofs may not have adequate ventilation and think someone is trying to get them to sink a bunch of money into a superfluous home improvement project. In fact, roof vents are critical to extending the life of your roof, especially in newer homes. Given that putting in a new roof tends to be the most expensive home improvement installation of a home's lifetime, protecting your roof is a vital piece of responsible homeownership.
The Modern Home and Roof Ventilation
You may have learned that older homes have little, if any, roof ventilation and seem to be holding up just fine. Older homes tend to have inferior weatherstripping, window insulation, and generally are not as airtight. This makes for extremely low energy-efficiency, but enough overall air circulation to combat the lack of roof ventilation. Upgrading your insulation and putting in replacement windows will dramatically cut down on your utility costs, but it may also create a ventilation problem. Condensation may begin to form on your windows and moisture may begin to infiltrate your roof as well, causing ice dams or rot on the roof frame. To circumvent this problem, adequate roof ventilation in the form of some type of roof vent is absolutely necessary.
Roof Ridge Vents
If you have cathedral ceiling, roof ridge vents is the roof ventilation system of choice, but any number of roof vent systems can be generally effective. Roof vents include roof ridge vents, soffit vents, and gable vents. Each of these vents have slightly different designs themselves but can also overlap. For example, a soffit vent is a type of ridge vent, but ridge vents don't necessarily have to be installed at your roof soffits. Studies are notoriously unreliable, as they are conducted in controlled, laboratory settings that often don't play out in real homes. Older roof ridge vents would allow blowing snow to enter your attic space, causing structural damage. That problem was fixed. The technology is getting better and better, but we still don't know anywhere near everything about roof ventilation. One of the only things you can trust is that any roof ventilation system will be better than no ventilation in modern homes.
Protecting Your Home with Roof Vents
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