Roof vents undoubtedly play a crucial role in cooling your home, but it's indirect. While they don't actively blow cold air like an air conditioner, they work to regulate the temperature in your attic, which ultimately impacts the overall comfort level of your living space.
In terms of energy efficiency, roof vents play a pivotal role. By allowing hot air to leave the attic, the interior of a home stays cooler, which can lead to a reduction in the use of air conditioning. This, in turn, may result in lower energy bills.
Disadvantages of Turbine Roof Vents
Reliant on Winds: Turbine roof vents harness the power of wind to expel hot air from the attic. This reliance on wind is both their strength and weakness. On calm days with little to no wind, these vents may struggle to spin, reducing their efficiency.
Keeping your roof vents open keeps the roof at an even temperature to prevent damaging ice dams, where water backs up underneath your shingles, freezing and causing damage to your roofing components and structure as well as your gutters.
Beyond the energy savings, roof ventilation can also prevent many issues, including mold growth, ice dams, and structural damage due to moisture in your attic.
For a home with 2000 square feet of attic floor space, you'll first divide 2000 by 300 (2000 ÷ 300 = 6.66). You need 6.66 square feet of attic ventilation. Since you want a balanced system, you divide by 2 so that half of the ventilation is intake and half is exhaust.
If you're installing tile or slate vents, it's important to install them on both the front and rear sides of your roof to allow for complete air circulation. If your home is susceptible to condensation, we'd recommend installing tile or slate vents at varying heights for more thorough air circulation.
Heat Loss: Since whirlybirds continuously ventilate, they can lead to heat loss during winter, making your home colder. Wind Dependency: Because they operate using wind power, your whirlybird will likely be running when you don't need it to; during cold, wet and windy weather.
Without proper roof ventilation, you allow the attic to remain at a high temperature. This can damage and crack your shingles well before they should be showing signs of damage. Go with the flow. Roof vents create proper air flow, which reduces moisture that can build up inside an attic.
Blocked or Covered Vents: One of the most common reasons for a cold room is blocked or covered vents.
A universally accepted guideline for roof ventilation is the 1/150 ventilation rule. According to this rule, a roof must have ventilation that is at least one square foot for every 150 square feet of attic or crawl space. A minimum of 13.3 square feet of ventilation is needed for a 2,000-square-foot attic.
Both types of vents are effective tools for ventilating your home, but ridge vents are more common nowadays. Box vents are more prone to leaking, letting critters into your attic and rust. The important rule to keep in mind is to install only one type of roof vent.
It is absolutely possible the ventilation system on your roof is excessive. Maybe your home is older and prior ventilation was installed by a homeowner, or incorrect vent sizes were used in an older roof layout. Too much ventilation can negatively influence the attic's and home's insulation as well.
Proper roof ventilation is critical to keep your roof and home healthy. While all homes should have soffit vents on the bottom of the roof, they also need to have another kind of vent near the ridge. Most homeowners typically choose between ridge vents and box vents.
Reality: Contrary to popular belief, ceiling fans do not decrease the actual air temperature in a room. Instead, they generate a wind chill effect akin to the refreshing sensation of a breeze on a warm day.
When you're having a new home built then installing a ridge vent is the best way to maintain the optimal temperature of your home. Since there are vents on the roof, heat can escape the house naturally. It doesn't have to be vented out like a normal house would, which keeps things cool inside.
Roof vents undoubtedly play a crucial role in cooling your home, but it's indirect. While they don't actively blow cold air like an air conditioner, they work to regulate the temperature in your attic, which ultimately impacts the overall comfort level of your living space.
However, most HVAC contractors use a rule of thumb to determine the number of air vents needed. For example, for a standard residential HVAC unit, you'll generally need one supply vent and one return vent for every 100 to 150 square feet of living space.
Those are turbines (also known as whirlybird vent), a type of roof vent that provides a valuable service no homeowner should overlook. Here's what to know!
The Cost to Install a Whirlybird
The price of the whirlybird itself can range from $100 to $200, while the installation labour cost can range between $350 to $400. Double Storey House: For a double storey house, the cost of installing a whirlybird is a little higher, ranging from $550 to $750.
The national average cost to install a roof vent is between $240 and $600. Most people pay around $450 to install a ridge vent on a standard two-story house with a gable roof. At the low end of the spectrum, you can expect to pay around $55 to install a turtle roof vent on a one-story house with a flat roof.
While you may be tempted to do it yourself, the safest way to go is to hire a local roofing company to do the job. Roofers have the training, licensing, and experience needed to install a ventilation system on your roof, without putting you at risk of leaks.
Nails, shingles, and the old vent will need to be removed.