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Posted by Jonny on November 29, 2006, 5:25 am
> 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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>
Remember framing houses in that period. That was the norm, one gable vent
either side and some soffit vents.
For the ridge venting to work in tangent with the soffit vents, yes, the
gable venting area should be framed in and closed off. You may need more
soffit vents though. And the attic insulation must be cleared to allow air
to move from the soffit area to the ridge.
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