Roofing and Decking Costs
This has been an interesting summer regarding roofing installations. We are starting to see the effects of additional insulation requirements instigated twenty plus years ago and the resulting ventilation / condensation / moisture problems. The older homes along with old windows and very little insulation in the walls and attic would breathe quite well and condensation collection in the house was generally not a problem – unless you had aluminum single pane windows and the ice would form on the inside frame.
This has been an interesting summer regarding roofing installations. We are starting to see the effects of additional insulation requirements instigated twenty plus years ago and the resulting ventilation / condensation / moisture problems. The older homes along with old windows and very little insulation in the walls and attic would breathe quite well and condensation collection in the house was generally not a problem – unless you had aluminum single pane windows and the ice would form on the inside frame.
But the newer homes are built to be energy efficient and that requires adding insulation and making the house “tigher”. From a roofing point of view we want the attic area to exchange air on a continuous basis, coor air for warm air, dryer air for moist air.
As I mentioned earlier, this has been a year where we are starting to see many situations similair to the one pictured above. If you look, closely, you will see vent holes allowing the air to enter through the soffiting material but insulation is limiting the airflow from traveling into the attic space and out through the roof vents.
These types of issues are usually discovered during the installation of a new roof and are not always visable during a normal inspection. As shown above, we have added treated baffles in each rafter cavity to create airflow from the soffit to the attic space.
You may be wondering why we always say – hire a professional roofing contractor? The reason is many roofing companies can miss these details and that can result in exessive heat build-up, mold, damaged shingles, mositure damaged decking and loss of warranty.