Despite never having constructed a house before, Richard and I had tons of expert experience around us. Pa was ever helpful and went way beyond to make sure we did things right and well. We talked to contractors around the area, chose men and women recommended by others. Richard and I acted as our own contractors and therefore all our expert help were our subcontractors.
Only in one case did we decide arbitrarily that we could do something none of us had ever done. Even our framer and roof man had never done it. That something was to put in a ridge vent and ice dam material on the roof rather than going with typical vents or the turbine vents you see on most roofs. Ridge vents are relatively new, and a lot of contractors in this area still don't use the new technology. Ice dam material goes on from the edge up 18 inches of the roof. We put a second layer up there, bringing it to 36 inches covered in the material.
We put 20 soffits in the eaves for airflow. There are three ways to control airflow from bathroom and stove vents inside the house. You can vent to the attic (about 50% of home builders in this area do that), or vent to the outside - either through the roof or the sides of the house.
We decided the bathroom vents and the stove vent could simply go into the attic since we had a ridge vent and plenty of soffits. Also, our attic has a lot of space as it is higher than most peaks due to our 9 foot walls inside the house.
After reading up on ridge vents and ice dam material on the Internet, consulting the store where we bought the materials and going over the instructions that came with the package, we were confident it would be done right.
Our roof is an inverted V, supported solely by the trusses. The beam under the porch is fake, and the porch pillars are for looks, they do not support the roof at all. After the ice storm last week, we noted the roof had a lot of snow (which means insulation is good) and that it was steadily melting as it should when weather warms up.
One day, Richard took Echo out to run in the yard and stayed up on the porch. And that's when he noticed the fake beam UNDER the porch was dripping.
Roof leak? Condensation? The ice dam material not functioning?
And so began a saga in which we and a series of experts started examining the roof, the shingles, and the attic.
Richard went into the attic and found a mess. All the insulation over the porch was wet. Soaking wet. When he lifted out the soffits, water just drained out. The rest of the attic was fine. Only the porch part of the roof was affected. The ceiling above (underside of the roof) was slighly damp, but only over the porch. The baffles between the house attic and the porch attic were covered in condensation.
We had intentionally separated with special baffles the porch attic and the house attic. This was a recommendation of the insulation company so we'd not lose heat and insulation creeping over to the unheated part of the porch attic.
After much examination of the roof, every single expert said the problem was condensation. But what could have possibly caused it? Venting bathroom and stove vents to the attic? But we KNEW of other houses in the area vented this way, in fact, the very man who did the bathroom and stove work did his own newly built home this way! And there was so much water! We'd moved in November 4, the ice storm happened last week. Another examination of the roof should no leaks in it. The problem was condensation.
Everyone had a solution. The roofing folk had one. The insulation guys came out and had one. The various subcontractors - roofers and ventilation folks both, had one.
1. Insulate around the attic access door
2. Insulate above in the attic and put a cover in the house over the whole house fan
3. Vent the bathroom and stove to the roof, rather than the attic
4. Put in more baffles between the house attic and the porch attic
Richard spent a couple days doing the first two. These two things we meant to do ANYWAY, but had put off as we dealt with other issues.
All of these solutions made sense. But what CAUSED the problem in the first place? Why wasn't air flowing in the attic when we had a full length ridge vent and twenty soffits? In normal circumstances, twenty soffits are overkill. But we had trouble before with houses that had ventilation problems so we wanted to be sure we'd have plenty of air circulation in the attic.
Richard went and consulted with the roofing materials people again. While there, a young man who worked there on the side and had his own roofing company suggested we test the vents and airflow. He'd bring out a fog machine (yep, just like those Halloween fog ones!) and he'd test the airflow by releasing fog from outside into the soffits, then releasing fog in the attic to see where it went.
This morning, after about 2 hours, we discovered the ridge vent has completely failed. No fog went in and no fog came out. We're not sure why this has happened, since appears to be properly installed. The mesh style fabric inside is taut, and it appears the baffles are fine.
The young man said we had two choices. Take the ridge vent off and reapply it, or simply put in 7 new regular vents across the south side of the roof. The south roof faces the back yard and the vents won't be visible.
We decided to do the second. Although the young man has experience installing ridge vents, its failure and the fragility of the material has caused us to re-think its application.
So tommorow the young man and one of his helpers will be coming to install roof vents.
We will also take the bathroom and stove vents out via the roof. A subcontractor has already been hired to do that job, too.
See the ice melting at the left corner? That was the first indication something was wrong. The ice should've melted evenly across the roof.
A lesson learned. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Ridge vents may be right for some, but not for others.
Fortunately, we discovered the issue early and remediation will not be as expensive as it could've been.
