What You Need to Know About Roofing Ventilation


Does your older home have roofing ventilation that adheres to current standards? Or is your lack of ventilation causing an invisible buildup of damage during the heat of summer and freezing temperatures of winter?

A leading cause of roof damage is lack of adequate ventilation. At Feazel, one of the foremost Cincinnati roofing companies, we make sure our roofing systems are installed with proper ventilation to ensure your roof lasts and lasts.

Many people don’t know their roof needs to breathe. In fact, the roof’s ability to breathe is about as critical to the health of your roof as breathing is to your health!

Roofing Ventilation in Summer

In summer, hot air trapped in your attic can reach temperatures as high as 140 degrees – enough to accelerate the aging of your wood and shingles. The high heat, if it cannot escape, also burdens your air conditioner, causing it to wear out more quickly as it struggles to cool your home. Just like your heating and air conditioning vents in the rest of the house, the roof needs intake vents to pull in fresh air as well as vents to exhaust stale air from the attic. This allows a path of airflow to form, creating circulation in the attic, beneath the roofing materials.

As one of the most highly skilled Cincinnati roofing companies, Feazel workers know to install the intake vents in the soffit or under the eaves, and to install exhaust vents near the peak of the roof.

 

Roofing Ventilation in Winter

In the winter, moisture rises to the attic, moistening insulation and reducing its effectiveness. This moisture can also rot the building materials in your attic and roof. Further, if the trapped air warms the roof too much, the snow closest to the shingles melts and runs underneath the top layer of snow, freezing again when it reaches the cold surfaces at the edge of the roof. This continues happening, creating dangerous buildups of ice at the edges of the roof and gutters. This not only causes gutter problems, but also leads to pools of trapped water on the roof leading to ice dams.

 

Roofing Ventilation Installed by Cincinnati Roofing Companies

Feazel is proficient at installing a wide variety of roofing vents, including ridge vents, rooftop vents, triangular gable-end vents, rectangular gable-end vents and undereave vents. Most vents create air flow through proper positioning and the physics of air temperature. Some roofs use turbine vents, which spins in the wind and draws air through the system. Roof vents can also create circulation with small electric motors triggered by a thermostat.

Roofing projects are also connected to exhaust fans in the home. For more on this topic, read our article about exhaust fan ventilation.