Can Adding Ridge Vents Cool Your House?

27 Replies to “Can Adding Ridge Vents Cool Your House?”

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2. I’m not sure if he mentioned it or not, but I think it’s really hot up there.

3. wouldn't it be better/easier to repair/replace the existing attic fans? maybe not… I don't know. just wondering.

4. roofer here. I've found turtle vents with soffit airflow to be more efficacious. the gable vents looked fine. I'm not a fan of fans 😁

5. Gosh I hope it’s not hot.

   Also, I think you may have inadvertently summoned @Matt Risinger with insulation/heating concerns.

6. If you are venting common attic space, I would recommend never installing the venting on lower ridges, only the at the highest peak. If venting is installed on varying levels, the lower of the vents can actually end up serving as intake, pulling in more air. If it’s not common or shared attic space then that shouldn’t be an issue though.

   In terms of the ridge cap shingles, generally your want to run a few on either side of the opening first before installing the venting, then lay the ridge vent to overlap over the installed ridgecap.

7. More than likely you don't have sufficient return air pulling from that room back to your furnace. If you could add another return or two up there (high on the wall) it would make a big difference. Second floors are always the hardest to cool because heat rises, so you can never have too much return air coming from the second floor.

8. As an owner of a house referred to as a story and a half, the half story upstairs is notoriously hard to maintain a temperature the same as the main floor. It has to do with the sloped ceiling. The ceiling is only like 6" at most away from the shingles especially in "older" homes which absorb alot of heat from the sun. Also the slope ceiling is typically hard to keep vented as there isn't enough room for insulation and an air gap between the insulation and the roof deck, which is needed to keep ventilation. Hope this helps

9. Wow! You on that roof was super unsafe. No hard hat. No harness & safety ropes. Working on the roof by yourself. (I know that the cameraperson was with you but you still weren't exhibiting proper safety precautions.) Your tools & materials weren't secured. It looks like your shoes aren't slip resistant. The area on the ground below where you were working wasn't cordoned off. Not good all around.

10. We like to be save. Loving the up facing nails. Lol.

11. Be interested to know how ridge vents affect your heating bills in winter.

12. Ridge vent is effective, not with roof can/vents, actually none are as effective as we'd like but certain combination do little. Roof vents with ridge vents will primarily move air from on vent to the other, path of least resistance and all. Ridge vents with gable vents just move air from the gable to the ridge, pretty much ignoring the air from the soffits, refer to the path of least resistance. Building codes require a specific umber of square inches in venting to square feet of roof. Those formulas work, but never enough to actually cool an attic to a degree that cools the inside rooms sufficiently, so all day and night the hot air will thermally keep the ceiling pretty dang warm. Go into your attic 4 hours after sundown, uh-huh, venting is insufficient. To be effective, the hot air needs to be either sucked out or pushed out, that's when the venting really works. A mechanical, motorized vent, one that move more air than you thought necessary, will lower the inside room temp. These days a solar powered motorized vent would "probably" work. A powered vent with a thermostat and a switch to manually control it would be optimal. The fan will cost far less to run than an AC unit. Anyone reading this who visits their attic at midnight after a 90 degree day and finds their attic at midnight air temps really needs to share how that happened. 🙂

13. We have an attic fan, it brings the temp in the attic down about 30ºF as you noticed also. The difference is with the AC off in the house it actually feels like it cools down a bit when I turn the fan on. Might be psychological though…

14. I’d love to see a Perkins Builder Brothers or Ray Jay Builder Buddies reaction video to this

15. Vents under your eaves will draw air from outside the house into the roof-space/ attic area and ventilate that area. Wouldn't it make sense to have a vent from your hot room into your roof space as well? This should allow hot air from the room to exit via the roof-space and your newly installed ridge-vents? Or am I barking up the wrong tree…

16. I don't think you mentioned it, but it looks hot out there.

17. Measure temps again in a few days. Due to the thermal mass of the house, it's going to hold that heat for a few days. It takes time to release that heat.

18. 27⁰c isn't too bad here in Indonesia 🤣

19. You need to make sure the insulation is not obstructing the soffit vents.

20. Wonder how this compares to a whirlybird?

21. Work early in the morning or in the evening….jfc.

22. I have an a-frame with no attic. Might this help reduce moisture building up on the ceiling?

23. Hola! 🖐 That looked like you cooked while up on that roof! 🔥🥵 What a shame that it did not have the effect you were looking for. Very instructional video though and a good reminder that even though a project may seem almost impossible to do, most times it is attainable by a DIYer. Stay safe and take care. Have a good one, Adios! 👊

24. I don't wanna poo on the video, because it was great, but I would've guessed that it would not have much effect on the room. Attic ventilation is primarily for moisture removal and stems from a time when bath fans and other items were also vented into the attics, which is against code probably everywhere by now.  

    Roofers / builders / shingle manufacturers will talk about how it extends the life of shingles, and while that's true it's not by any substantial amount of time (like 3 months longer life over a 25 year period).

    Folks often think that a cooler attic is gonna help, while it does have some impact it is normally done / sold because someone is trying to solve a comfort problem that is rooted elsewhere (primarily air-leakage, insulation, or HVAC). There are some instances and climates where a cooler attic may actually have a detrimental impact to the building.

    So my rambling point is that it is better to start with some testing of the building, consulting, and education on the problem you are trying to solve to maximize odds of success and not waste budget on things that may not move the needle very far. If you are just gonna throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, then air-sealing is always a positive. Insulation is also always a positive as long as the area is air-sealed (which it normally is not and proper air-sealing also often requires removal of insulation, so order matters). A lot of times these problems are a combination of things and not going far enough will also minimize odds of success and not meet expectations, which is why having a deep understanding of the problem and the structure is important.

25. I grew up in what was basically a steeple. It was a giant A and I lived at the top of it. What we finally did was put what my dad called cheater fans in the vents. It pulled more A/C upstairs and they could run when the AC was off to help bring cool air upstairs

26. Adding a hot air return to the ac unit and air balancing would probably do the trick!

27. I recently had my roof replaced and my soffit it has the same kind of shingles that you're talking about and they replaced it all with Hardie board with no vents

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