When it to what can damage your property, water is one that can cause a lot of damage in a different sense of emotions. Seeing your things soaked in water that cannot recover from can be hard. Understanding how water can get into your house can help save a lot of problems in the future along with being able to know how fans and vents work.
Whole house fans can provides excellent ventilation to achieve lower indoor temperatures, especially in larger homes. The whole house fan pulls air in from open windows and exhausts it through the attic and roof. It provides good attic ventilation in addition to whole house cooling. Whole house fans should provide houses with 30 to 60 air changes per hour (varies with climate, floor plan, etc. check with a professional to determine what is appropriate for your home). The air-change rate you will choose depends on your climate and how much you will depend on the whole house fan for cooling. However, whole-house attic fans can be a major source of water intrusion into attics. Whole house fans are designed to be run in the summer but air and water can get in twelve months a year.
Depending on the shape of your roof, the orientation of your home and your climate, many options allow outside air to enter and exit attics and ventilation spaces. All types of vents (intake, exhaust, gable end) might allow wind-driven rain to enter the space. All must also be installed to prevent precipitation, animals and insects from entering the ventilation space. After a hard rain, go into the attic and look for puddles or wet insulation.
With proper installation and care, ridge vents and attic fans should not leak. However, improper installation and age can lead to rain intrusion. For example, sometimes installers will use the wrong nails or shorter nails to secure the vents to the structure. When a shoddy or inexperienced contractor fails to overlap the pieces or doesn’t extend the sections enough, rain will eventually make its way into the attic.
A turbine vent is another type of roof vent. It features contoured vanes that pull heat from the attic, turning with assistance from the faintest breeze. Their raised profile can be more noticeable than that of the standard roof vent, so if aesthetics are an issue, you may want to have them installed on the back, rather than the front of your house.
