Ridge vent and wind turbine

When a hail storm damaged our roof this year I had the opportunity to make a few improvements to our attic ventilation system. The roofer’s inspection of our then current setup yielded an insufficient number of soffit vents, 2 seized electric attic fans, and one electric attic fan over the garage that wasn’t even wired up. That left one working attic fan to vent the hot air and it did a terrible job!

We discussed purchasing a radiant barrier coating which is applied to the wood directly beneath the shingles. The idea is that this barrier reflects a good portion of the sun’s rays back away from the house thereby keeping the attic and living space temperatures significantly cooler. We might have invested in this improvement if had we not recently purchased a new mini van for our growing family.

Here’s what we ended up with:

• We installed a ridge vent on all of the horizontal roof peaks. They essentially slice the top several inches off the peak and install a special cap that keeps water out but lets hot air escape. When the wind blows across our roof it creates a vacuum effect and sucks the hot air right out of the attic!
• We removed all four of our electric attic fans, replaced two with wind turbines, and replaced the other two with “turtle vents” which are basically holes in the roof with special caps to keep the weather out. The wind turbines suck hot air out of the attic by using wind power outside to spin the blades.
• We added about twenty soffit vents. That’s right, 20! Needless to say our house should not have passed inspection even back in 1992 when it was built. These soffit vents allow cool air to enter the attic from the bottom allowing for better air flow.