House & Home Articles - Remodeling / Home Improvement

Home Remodeling the Sweltering Attic

Home Remodeling beginning with your attic is good way to reclaim that cold air that your attic has been sapping away from the rest of your house. Then why is your attic like a sauna - and sitting in it for an hour a day part of your diet plan - if it's stealing your nice cold air-conditioned air? It's rather like an embezzler. Stealing a little bit of money at a time so nobody notices the missing money until an audit is done. The cold air in the living areas of your house can find its way up to the attic through walls, the attic door, plumbing vent pipes, and even drywall. If your house is modeled with only a couple of misplaced vents in the attic, the air "floats" out because there is not enough force to push the hot air out. If you have fiberglass insulation, you can see the proof because the insulation works much like an air filter. Just check out the batts for dirt. If you don't have insulation, that's your first problem - but that's not where we'll start.

If you have a power ventilated fan, it's sweeping your expensive cold air out into the neighbor's yard. The attic might feel a tad bit cooler with the fan on, but the cold air that it's dragging out the window is coming from your living area. Whenever your living area gets warmer, your air conditioner works harder. When your air-conditioner works harder, you have less money to complete all of your home remodeling jobs. So much for that new workshop for all your cool remodeling tools. To make matters worse, solar energy experts have found that the sun also heats up the frames and all kinds of things in your attic.

Even though cold air is trickling in, heat is coming in from everywhere and everything in your attic is absorbing it, rather like the earth absorbs the heat from the sun. But there's so much trapped heat, that most of it is standing still. You need lots of air flow to cool down the all that woodwork, and to get rid of that hot steamy air, but the caveat is you have to keep the cold air out of the attic and in your house. You will need to get the ceilings insulated and do some intense air sealing to keep the air conditioned air from sneaking past you while you're snoozing on the couch. Your home remodeling project is also going to have to include getting the proper ventilation into the attic.

Since you're working in the attic, starting your attic remodeling project with ventilation rehab is the best way to ensure you will be alive to finish installing the insulation and complete your remodeling project. A couple of vents in the middle of the attic aren't going to make much difference for air flow. You need to set your sites on the lowest and highest part of your roof. Says who? Uncle Sam, that's who. The U.S. Department of Energy at their website for energy efficiency (www.energy.gov) claims that the best ventilation comes from continuous soffit vents and continuous ridge vents along the peak of the roof. Their rule of thumb: One square foot of net vent opening for every one-hundred and fifty square feet of insulated ceiling. (If the insulation has vapor barrier, the ratio is one foot to three-hundred square feet.)

And just like all men are created equal, so should all vent areas be divided equally between the soffits and ridges. Of course, there are roof designs that would make this modeling impossible. When that happens we need to look into cap vents, or gable vents, or, if you're in a windy area, turbine vents might be a great idea since Mother Nature is on your side. Uncle Sam asks you to stay away from powered vents because they are fraught with the potential of causing gases from combustible appliances to wreak some havoc in your house. Which is why it's best to take a look and see if optimizing the soffit vents and continuous ridges are the best way to naturally ventilate your attic. And speaking of Uncle Sam, don't forget to check out your building codes before you start remodeling.

Home Remodeling your attic will no doubt cover you in sweat, but when the remodeling project is completed, all that nice cool air-conditioned air will be yours to sit back and enjoy. Remodeling your attic will reclaim you air-conditioning, and the money you spent on energy bills. Start the remodeling with the ventilation and be cool, because cool should be where you're at.


About The Author:
Mike Dias is a successful publisher and writes articles on many topics including home remodeling and air conditioners. He Provides detailed information about buy portable air conditioner, air conditioner window units, through wall air conditioner, split type air conditioner and much more.

Back To Remodeling Articles »