When home communities are built, the builder has a vision and theme he is trying to display through each individual house and the overall community. We typically find faulty roof and gutter installations due to the builder’s desire to complete the project as fast as possible. If every builder created a bullet proof house, it would cost you less to maintain your home, but the job would take longer and the builder would make less profit. Instead, you find roof’s like the one below with a very ‘artistic’ looking roof ventilation system.
This roof has enough can vents to exhaust the entire roof clustered together on one side of the house instead of distributed evenly. Additionally, eight of the eleven visible can vents are obsolete because they are placed directly next to each other. The cluster of six can vents, located on the bottom left side of the photo, are circulating air from each other horizontally and then are restricting air from circulating vertically through the entire roof. Ideally, can vents should be placed at the highest point possible to allow the air to flow in from vents located underneath the gutters, through the roof and out the can vents. Not allowing air to flow through the entire roof, or limiting air exhaust to a limited section, will cause your roof to overheat and degredate at least two times faster than normal. Poor roof ventilation causes 9 out of 10 roofs to prematurely fail.
We take roof ventilation very seriously and we’re proud to say we’re one of the few green roofing contractors in the state of Oregon. If your attic has been obscenely hot this summer, chances are you might have a roof ventilation issue. Give us a call at (503) 925-0125 or request a roof inspection and our roof consultants will give you a full assessment including your roof ventilation.