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Posted by SJC on November 28, 2006, 2:18 am
I would find out where the water is really coming from before I did anything to
the vents.
> Hi, folks,
>
> About once every year or so, when the wind blows just right, I can get
> water dripping from the tops of two window frames in my house. These
> two windows are located directly beneath gable vents in my attic.
> Every time I see the drips, I think that there's something wrong with
> the windows -- and then I remember! The leaks happen rarely enough
> that I usually forget about them completely, until the next time
> (which, in this case, was yesterday). Maybe I'll follow through this
> time?
>
> I recently had a solar PV system installed and, while I had the roofers
> up there, I had them install a ridge vent. The PV engineer had some
> background in solar thermal as well as PV, and told me that the ridge
> vent would improve passive convection in the attic. It seems to have
> worked. It's cooler in the house during the summer than it was before.
> The engineer told me that I could make the system work even better if
> I sealed off my gable vents. With the gable vents closed off, air
> would only be able to enter the attic space through the soffit vents.
> Supposedly, this configuration would enhance the chimney effect in the
> attic space.
>
> So now, I have two possible reasons to seal off the gable vents. My
> questions are:
>
> 1) Do these reasons sound valid to you?
>
> 2) Why am I getting water in my gable vents at all? The winds here are
> not exactly gale-force. Is this a design flaw? Is there an
> installation problem I should be looking for? The house was built in
> 1970, and the vents are original construction.
>
> 3) If I close off the vents, are there right and wrong ways to do it?
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
>
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