When it comes to cooling your home this summer, you might not have your attic in mind, especially if your attic tends to be just for storage. However, if you don’t take care to properly ventilate your attic, it can become dangerously hot and keeps the heat from truly leaving your home. After all, heat rises, so the space most in need of cooling during the summer is your attic.
You can install a ceiling fan in the attic, but some of the most essential steps to cooling your attic have to do with vent maintenance and installing more efficient ventilation.
Determine How Much Ventilation You Need
Before you decide what kind of vent you need to add to your attic, determine how many vents you need based on your square footage. Divide the square footage of your attic by 150 to determine your net free ventilating area (NFVA). Make sure the area you need to cover matches up with the area the vents need to cover.
Consider What Kind of Ventilation You Need
Soffit vents and ridge vents are common types of vents for attics. Ridge vents are planted on the roof of the house and help hot air to escape outside. Another kind of roof vent is a turbine vent, which you may recognize for its circular top and spinning nature on many residential rooftops. Turbine vents can actually pull more heat from the home, but they require wind in order to do so. You also want to be sure the attic is properly sealed, or turbine vents might overkill by pulling air from inside the home to the attic and then out. Ridge vents are more effective in climates with less wind, but don’t have quite as much power.
Soffit vents work in tandem with ridge and turbine vents but from the opposite angle. They’re planted in the lower eaves of the house and push cool air up into the attic. As the cool air is pushed up into the attic, the hot air that existed there is pushed towards the exhaust vents and out.
Keep Your Vents Clean
It’s important to keep all of your vents clean, but especially soffit vents as they’ll be most susceptible to dust and debris, which could clog the vent and slow the flow of air. The good news is they’re easy to clean, and not even very time consuming. The best method is through blasts of compressed air, which blows away any dust and debris and clears the vents to flow cool air to the attic again. This treatment should be repeated at least once or twice per year, and any time that you notice your soffit vents are dirty.
Cleaning ridge and turbine vents can be trickier because they’re on the roof. In many cases, if you think there’s a problem, it’s best to have a professional inspection and cleaning.
Have more questions about tactics or products that can keep your attic cool this summer? Contact Air Solutions in Bryan-College Station today or schedule a service request.