Your home needs to breathe and ventilation in your roof and attic system are an important part of a safe and healthy home. Our building code stipulates one vent for every 300 square feet of roof.
Moisture from everyday living (showers, laundry, dishwashing and cooking) needs to escape from your house to prevent mold, mildew and the rotting of your attic wood.
Summer heat needs to escape so your home does not become unbearably hot. Winter heating also needs to escape from attic spaces to prevent ice damming. (Ice dams are the large mass of ice that collects on the lower edge of the roof or in the gutters. As more melting snow runs down the roof, it meets this mass of ice and backs up, sometimes under the shingles and into the attic or the house.)
An effective ventilation system will help:
- reduce attic heat build-up,
- reduce attic moisture and condensation,
- prevent weather infiltration (drifting snow, wind-driven rain),
- prevent ice dam build-up.