SUNVEK BLOG:

4 Benefits of Well-Balanced Roof Ventilation

Roofing ventilation is a critical part of roof health. Your roof can either have not enough ventilation, causing air to stagnate, or ventilation that’s unbalanced or, in some cases, even too forceful. Here are four benefits well-balanced ventilation can bring to you and your home.

1. Protects Roofing Materials

Well-balanced roof and attic ventilation are critical if you want your roof to avoid cooking in the summer and becoming water-damaged from condensation in the winter. A well-balanced ventilation system means one that has a balance between intake vent space on the lower side of the roof (at the soffit, along the eaves or just above the eaves) and the venting at the higher side (just below the ridge, at the ridge line or at gable ends).

Your home needs to have lower and upper vents for an attic space to properly ventilate.  For example, your roof could have gable vents to release the hot air near your roof’s ridge, or your roof could have a ridge vent. But if your roof has both, air could simply enter the gable vents and exit the ridge vent rather than entering at the lower vents.

This is a critical point because the vacuum that hot air exiting causes encourages fresh air to enter the lower vents. The fresh air sweeps up along the underside of the roof deck, taking both heat and attic moisture with it as it ventilates out the high vent. If your roof has adequate ridge vent, it doesn’t need gable vents or turbines. Instead, make sure your roof has adequate venting along the lower eave area, and make sure that any soffit vents aren’t blocked by insulation.

2. Doesn’t Suck Air From Living Space

If your roof ventilation is too forceful and unbalanced, it can pull expensive indoor air up through any attic bypasses, costing you money. This typically can happen if you have a turbine vent or an attic fan and if your soffit vents are blocked or aren’t large enough to balance the vacuum with the volume of required fresh air.

To avoid wasting your heated and cooled air, you should not only make sure your attic ventilation is appropriate and balanced, but also have your contractor help you seal up attic bypasses. These are holes between your attic and the rest of your house. They allow vents, wires, and other necessities to pass through to the attic but are often oversized.

Finding these holes and sealing up any excess space can greatly reduce the amount of air that leaks through to the attic and save you some money. Plus, this can reduce the likelihood of developing an ice dam leak during the winter.

3. Keeps Rooms Below More Comfortable

If your thermostat is on the ground floor but you also have a second floor, you may notice that the upstairs rooms get warmer in the summer. This could be at least partly due to an inadequate roof ventilation system.

In contrast, a good roof and attic ventilation system can help your attic space stay closer to the ambient temperature outside without taxing your cooling and heating system. This ensures that you can keep both the upstairs and the downstairs rooms comfortable.

4. Saves You Money

In addition to helping your roof last longer and saving money on roofing repairs, good attic ventilation saves you money as well. Since ventilation is a passive cooling system for your attic, the ventilation helps you avoid the cost of cooling the attic electrically.

Both an underpowered or overpowered attic ventilation system can make your home’s HVAC system work harder. An underpowered one lets hot air accumulate in the attic, which means more unwanted heat comes to your home, and an overpowered one pulls the cool air out of your living space, again increasing the load on your HVAC.

These four benefits show how a high-functioning, well-balanced ventilation system to keep your roof and attic cool can actually benefit your everyday life and your wallet as well as your home’s systems such as HVAC and the roof itself.

Whether you want a professional to check and maintain your roof and vents or whether you have condensation caused by insufficient venting and need roof repairs, SUNVEK is ready to help. Contact us today to discuss your needs and how we can help.

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