The Benefits Of Attic Fans

If you’ve ever had to enter your attic in the summer, you know it’s not a job for the faint of heart. The stiflingly, oven-like atmosphere makes the sweat stream down your face within minutes.

Have you ever thought about what that pillow of hot air above your home does for your cooling costs? Nothing good, we can assure you. That part of the equation — cooling and heating costs — can be addressed with sufficient insulation but what about what the heat is doing to your roof?

As you probably know, roofs are installed with underlayment on top of the decking that provides, among other things, a vapor barrier. This is a crucial element of the roof structure, but what is the hot, humid air doing to the inside of your roof?

Moisture and heat can cause warping to the wood of the decking and the rafters. After a time this warping might cause your shingles to buckle or loosen. Mold and mildew might even form on the sheathing due to condensation if the outside becomes cooler than the inside.

How Can I Address the Problem of an Overheated Attic?

There is only one answer to a stuffy, overheated space: more air circulation. This has become a very important issue as homes become more and more energy-efficient. Old homes used to leak a lot, and their attics were poorly insulated, so the wind blew through and it didn’t get too hot.

Nowadays, though, good construction is tight as a drum, and energy-conscious homeowners are doing more to make sure older houses are tightened up as well. However, they often forget the other half of the coin, which is that you have to ensure good air circulation, and if it isn’t happening naturally, you have to do it mechanically. Hence, the attic fan.

Attic fans are usually on a switch attached to a thermometer to make them turn on when the attic starts to get hot. Like a kitchen exhaust fan, the pull the hot air out of the attic, creating negative pressure that pulls cooler air in from other sources. It is very important that your ceiling be well sealed and insulated, however, or the path of least resistance will be the ice-cold air from your air-conditioned living space, and not the soffits under the eaves.

This is where it really helps to have a professional install your attic fan. We don’t just wire up the fan and leave — we ensure that the air will circulate properly, and is pulling air up from the soffits as it should. For more information on this service, or to book a quote, call us today, at (703) 754-9906.