The Little-Known Importance of Good Attic Ventilation

When you need a new roof, you’ll have the opportunity to select your materials, what color you want, any features you want to install, and much more. But what many homeowners don’t consider and sadly some roofing contractors don’t pay enough attention to is the space immediately beneath your roof. Your attic is arguably the most important part of your home when it comes to the health of your roof, and too many times we see a fairly new roof fall apart quickly because the attic was not properly ventilated. On this blog, we’ll explain why ventilation is important and what you can do to improve it.

Why Ventilation Matters

When you’re trying to keep your home during the frigid winter temperatures, you’re likely thinking that the first and most important thing to do is to seal your attic up tight so that heat that escapes through your ceiling won’t find it way out of your home. Some people do this and unfortunately find out the hard way later that this can have disastrous results.

However, even beyond the cold temperatures of winter, ventilation is extremely important during summer months, and bad ventilation can not only force your home to stay warmer for longer, but could lead to serious damage to everything from your shingles to the very structure of your home.

A good ventilation system will have small intake vents near the eaves around your roof and then an exhaust up at the top of your roof. This allows cool air from outside in and hot, moist air in the attic to escape, particularly during summer where the constantly beating sun turns your attic into an oven, causing the air to continually heat up and rise. This also causes moisture in the air to become thicker and more damaging, potentially having disastrous consequences on your roof underlayment, support beams, and even the paint on your home!

Finally, winter months mean turning on your heater, and this warm air often flows out of your home and into your attic through small cracks in your ceiling. This warm air can contribute to the formation of ice dams in your roof, as the warm air from inside can become trapped, heating the surface of your roof, causing the snow and ice to melt, and then re-freeze further down the slope where the temperature is cooler. Having proper ventilation can alleviate this problem by giving the warm air that naturally rises an opportunity to escape.

Improving Your Attic Ventilation

So now that we know how important attic ventilation is, what can you do if you think you may have an issue with it? The first thing you should do is have a Colorado Springs roofer inspect your roof and determine if ventilation is the problem you’re dealing with. If so, don’t stress, there are several things you can do to improve the ventilation almost immediately.

The U.S. Federal Housing Administration recommends at least one square foot of ventilation (split between intake and exhaust) for every 300 square feet of attic space. In other words, a six-square-inch hole for intake and six-square-inch hole for exhaust should be enough to cover an attic that’s about 300 square feet in size (which really isn’t all that much, mind you).

Installing ventilation isn’t all that difficult, but it’s still advised you trust the job to a roofer who has the experience of being able to perform the task both from the inside and outside of your roof. This is also strongly advised because installing ventilation does involve cutting a hole in your roof and then installing the vent which then needs to be properly sealed to prevent leaks.