Installing Venting Through Cold Attic

Adequate attic ventilation is important to reduce your utility bills and avoid damage to the roof and attic.

Installing venting through cold attic.

First determine your attic area by multiplying the length by the width. A 30 x 40 ft. In of vent opening per 150 sq. Install half of the required vent area in soffit vents.

There are different kinds of vents. The warm moist air inside the vent tends to condense on the colder walls. The number of vents in your roof will depend on the size of your attic. Having a vent in each side of the gable was the typical attic ventilation configuration in older houses but today it is considered woefully inadequate for an efficient house.

Then aim for about 1 sq. Use rigid metal ducting aluminum or galvanized steel with lengthwise seams facing up and joints sealed with foil tape or duct mastic or rigid plastic pipe. If you vent through a soffit where attic vents are often located the moisture will get sucked back up into the attic or roof venting. You can attach the pieces together in all the holes by using the clamps that you have.

You are then back to sticking the vent to the wall with the brackets and screws. Attic for example has an area of 1 200 sq. Installation first requires a wood frame made of 2x4s installed from the attic between two studs. Leave the drill bit sticking through the roof so you can find the hole.

Venting the soffits is often done by installing continuous strip vents between the soffit boards or by adding rectangular and round vents at regular spacing between the rafters the easier option for existing soffits. If the attic is insulated with fiberglass batts just pull back any that are blocking the flow of air. You will then install the dryer vent through the hole that you have just made. Start in the attic and drill a hole through the roof in the desired vent location.

The soffit vents are now installed but you still need to make sure there s no insulation blocking the new vents. From up on the roof use a jigsaw or reciprocating saw to cut a 4 in. The building code lets you reduce that by half under some conditions but more roof ventilation is usually better. Soffit vents the narrow horizontal section on the underside of your roof eaves.

The attic is usually colder than the rest of the house during the winter and that can create a problem for a dryer vent. The roof is vented by simple holes cut through the sheathing and protected with vent caps or by continuous ridge vents. The standard is one square foot of venting for every 150 square feet distributed evenly between the soffit and roof vents. Try to keep it close to the fan location.