Why Summer is the Right Time to Fix Your Attic Ventilation

When you own a house, there are a lot of maintenance issues you need to attend to, especially in summer. Landscaping, gardening, roof repairs, plumbing, foundation work — all of these things are best done during the warm months of the year. Lets find out why summer is the right time to fix your attic ventilation. 

But one of the most overlooked maintenance tasks involves a little-used part of your house: the attic. Specifically, attic ventilation. 

Though it may seem simply to be a liminal space, in between your living area and your roof, the attic plays a number of crucial roles in regulating temperature and air moisture in your home, and an insufficiently ventilated attic can have widespread effects on energy use, the lifespan of your roof, and the general comfort of your home. 

In this article, we’ll go over some of the reasons why it is so important to make sure your attic is properly ventilated, and why summer is the perfect time to call in roof repair services you can rely on to fix any attic ventilation problems. 

1. Air is Meant to Flow

A house is designed to protect us from the elements, but if you’ve ever spent a sweltering summer in a house with poor ventilation, you’ll understand that good home design is porous: you want to have fresh air coming in, and moist air flowing out. 

Because warm air rises, your attic works as a kind of valve that gives that warm, wet air somewhere to go. A poorly-ventilated attic traps that air, causing your home to be hotter in the summer and facilitating the development of ice dams in the winter.

2. Poor Ventilation Drives Up Energy Costs

When warm, moist air stays in your attic, it can damage your insulation. Insulation is meant to be kept dry, and it becomes significantly less effective if it becomes waterlogged. This means that your air conditioner needs to work especially hard to keep the living space cold in the summer, and in the winter, it means you lose heat through your roof.  

If you’ve noticed that your A/C isn’t keeping your house as cool as it used to and you want to save on your energy bill, installing new vents in your attic may be the solution.

3. Ventilated Attics Extend Roof Lifespan

The main purpose of your roof is to keep moisture from entering your home. But it also needs to deal with the moisture that is already in your home generated by showers, washing machines, taps, and breathing. 

Shingles or flat roofing membranes protect the external surface of your roof, but there is no protection for the exposed rafters and roof deck on the inside — moisture that gets trapped in your attic will rot these components over time, weakening your roof and causing mold to spread. 

Roof ventilation keeps condensation from forming inside your attic, and ensures that your roof isn’t weakened from the inside. 

4. Why Repair Ventilation in the Summer?

Proper ventilation is important every month of the year, but summer is the easiest time to have the repair work done. Having it done as soon as possible will also ensure that you don’t keep paying unnecessary amounts on your energy bill, and will proactively protect you from ice dams come winter.

Attics aren’t just an architectural by-product of having a pitched roof: they play an important role in regulating the comfort of your living space. If you want to make sure all the humid air generated by daily activity in your home has somewhere to go, get in touch with a roofing company that specializes in attic ventilation today.