St. Louis Real Estate – Attic Ventilation | St Louis Real Estate Voice

St. Louis Real Estate – Attic Ventilation

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St. Louis First Time Home Buyers need to read this before buying a home.

ATTIC VENTILATION

Attic ventilation is an important part of your home’s design and construction but is seldom noticed when home buyer’s are looking at their dream home. In the summer attic ventilation can help prevent heat build up, which will make your living areas cooler and more comfortable, help reduce air conditioning costs and help prevent premature roof shingle deterioration. The major shingle manufacturers require attic ventilation to validate the shingle warranty. In the winter attic ventilation can help prevent moisture buildup, which will help prevent wood rot, mold, mildew, and poor indoor air quality. Good attic ventilation, along with proper attic insulation can help prevent the uneven freeze/thaw cycle associated with snow on your roof that often leads to ice dams which can backup water under shingles causing roof deck and interior sheathing damage.

Did you know that the average family of four generates 2-4 gallons of water vapor a day through activities such as cooking, cleaning, showering, laundry and breathing? Some of this water vapor rises into your attic. Good ventilation helps remove this moisture before it causes problems such as wood decay, wet insulation, mold and mildew.

So, what does your inspector look for and how does he report on acceptable or marginal attic ventilation. Your inspector knows that the best way to ventilate the attic is with a balanced system. Ventilation must be low and high, or in other words, vents at the soffits or edge vents for intake and ridge vents at the peaks for exhaust. The best part of ridge vent installations is that the component is installed along the entire peak and ventilates the entire underside of the roof deck.

Your inspector will document conditions inside the attic and on the roof with photos and review with you all the conditions that are present at the time of the inspection to ensure that you understand all the important aspects of attic ventilation.

Good house hunting, and leave all the important structural and mechanical details to your ASHI inspector.

Harry Morrell
Allied Building Inspections, LLC
Inspector

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Building Inspection News, First Time Home Buyer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.