"meirman" wrote in message
...
In alt.home.repair on Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:17:47 GMT "Robert E. Lewis"
posted:



I have now seen a second house roofed with a ridge vent for
ventilation --
and no soffit vents. A neighbor's roof was done that way, and now a
friend
is buying a townhouse that was recently reroofed (the whole complex was
reroofed), and the ridge vent is visible, but there's virtually no roof
overhang, no place to put a soffit vent, so they didn't bother. Parts of
the unit with an attic has what I'd call gable vents if they were in
gables,
but I've warned the friend that I expect the '70s style cathedral ceiling
in
the living room is going to get very hot, and his new neighbors have
confirmed that.

Didn't someone suggest putting vents on the roof itself, at the bottom
of the roof?

I have suggested to the friend buying the townhouse that he put in some sort
of roof vents over the part of the with an attic (one of the gable vents set
up high in a wall in the attic space seems to be almost directly above the
outdoor condenser unit of the central a/c, so I imagine it may be sucking
hot air into the attic in summertime). Some of the other units have roof
vents (none seem very low on the roof) in addition to the fairly short
section of ridge vent, so apparently the condo management does allow that.

I don't know what sort of retrofit my friend might be able to do to the roof
over the living roof, where there's a sloping ceiling and no attic (not even
any ridge vent there -- the roof slopes up, is interrupted by an atrium,
then resumes it's slope on the far side, where the ridge and ridge vent are
located). I'm guessing the condo association, when the roof was replaced
(within the past two years) did not install a radiant barrier.

On the neighbor's house, I suggested she make the roofer come back and put
some soffit vents in (he did some patching of soffits and fascia, IIRC). I
don't think the neighbor understood the basic heat-rises principles of
soffit/ridge venting, so she had him come back to re-work some unsightly
flashing and nothing else. (sigh)

--

Robert