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Attic venting

Chad2019 | Posted in General Questions on

I live in New England. My wife & I purchased a house a year ago. They had “gutted” the house & installed all brand new electrical, plumbing, etc. Its a 2 floor Cape with kids bedrooms on the 2nd floor. I recently went into one of the crawl spaces to find an issue with the forced hot air system that we were having this past winter. I noticed the insulation is most likely original to the 1950’s when the house was originally built. I also noticed there are no soffits vents or soffits to vent for that matter. There are no roof vents of any kind. 2 crawl spaces on the front & back of the house and a small non accessible space above the bedroom ceilings. On the outside if the house I see vinyl lovers vents up at the peak on each side of the house.
Do I need to vent my roof? If so where do I start?

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Replies

  1. user-2310254 | | #1

    Chad2019,

    This article will lay out the issues and options: https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/insulating-a-cape-cod-house

    When the house was gutted, did the contractor install new insulation? If so, where and what type?

    1. Chad2019 | | #3

      No new insulation

    2. Chad2019 | | #4

      They did not do anything on the 2nd floor except paint. Old foil backed insulation falling down in both craw spaces

  2. walta100 | | #2

    Any house that has lasted 60+ years is a great house. Most likely it lasted because it leaked enough air and heat to keep itself dry enough not to rot. You need to be careful about any changes to that balance.

    If you decide to insulate more and seal the air leaks then you will need more ventilation.

    Walt

  3. Jon_R | | #5

    > Do I need to vent my roof?

    I would install some monitoring equipment to answer that.

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