ridge vent and box vents on the same plane

1 ANSWERS

1. amomipais82
   

   Hi,
   The reason that ridge vents are important for cathedral style ceilings is because the space between each rafter is a seperate little attic.  Some folks call that space a rafter bay.  Each rafter bay is seperate from the other rafter bays and seperate from the larger, open attic that you have in the rest of the house.  Since each rafter bay is seperated from the others, each rafter bay needs to be ventilated.  Theoretically you could install a conventional attic vent over every rafter bay, but it would look like a forest of vents.  The ridge vents allow each individual rafter bay to have an outlet for the warm moist air in the rafter bays.
   
   Since the rafter bays aren't connected to the larger open attic area, the ridge vents that ventilate the rafter bays are doing nothing to help ventilate the rest of the attic.  And the fan you have in the open attic area isn't doing anything to ventilate the rafter bays.  So if you have just one room with cathedral style ceilings you can install ridge vents only over that roof and trust the fan and the other vent openings to ventilate the open attic area.
   
   With the powered attic fan you simply don't need additional vents, like the ridge vents, on the larger open attic area.
   
   You don't need to worry about the color of the roof.  A darker color may absorb more heat, but the with the insulation in the attic and the ventilation in place, it's not going to have a noticeable difference inside the house.  Besides, I think the roof is the prominent feature that a visitor first sees when they visit your home and it's going to have a major influence on their first impression of your beautiful home.  You should choose the color of the roof solely on the basis of which color will best reflect your style and makes your home look the best.  If that happens to be a lighter color, fine.  But if dark gray is the color that really looks good on your home, don't feel sheepish about using that darker color.

   Report (1) (0)  |   12 years, 9 month(s) ago