We have probably all read arguments and articles regarding, how should you vent your attic.
Well The short end is that my house is a 1950's built house. I have a ridge vent, and soffit vents, (probably could use a few more, but it is what it is), and I have gable vents. Most of the arguments are what to do when you have gable and ridge vents.
I have put a temperature logger in the attic and monitored temperatures, With 2 kids 2 and 9 months I havent gotten to analyze the data until now.
I ran 2 iterations of measurements.
1) as is - gable vents (2) open and the power gable vent fan on set at about 105F.
2) modified - 1 gable vent shut, the other has the fan and it was set at max high(130F i believe).
Findings:
I was able to match up 3 pairs of days, where the weather was the same when the gables were closed and open.
2 of the 3 days, the max temperature was 3F higher, the other day it was 1F lower. humidity was lower by 5% 2 of the 3 days.
and for the following nights after these matched days (to see how the attic cooled).
The attic was cooler by 5F and 6F 2 of the 3 days respectively. and warmer one day by 9F, strange.
What is my take away from this? After recording data for a month with the attic open and another with it closed, it was very hard to find days where the outside temperature matched up. These 3 days present a pretty limited data set. However, this data shows that with the vent closed, the temperature was ever so slightly cooler (i guess the ridge vent theory is marginally accurate). However, the attic wont cool off well at night as such by a pretty significant margin.
I am sure that it varies dramatically for each house, but for mine, I am going to leave the vents open, and the power vent running. The data logger cost $14 on ebay, and not I know for what what the most efficient way to run my very inefficient house is....
Well The short end is that my house is a 1950's built house. I have a ridge vent, and soffit vents, (probably could use a few more, but it is what it is), and I have gable vents. Most of the arguments are what to do when you have gable and ridge vents.
I have put a temperature logger in the attic and monitored temperatures, With 2 kids 2 and 9 months I havent gotten to analyze the data until now.
I ran 2 iterations of measurements.
1) as is - gable vents (2) open and the power gable vent fan on set at about 105F.
2) modified - 1 gable vent shut, the other has the fan and it was set at max high(130F i believe).
Findings:
I was able to match up 3 pairs of days, where the weather was the same when the gables were closed and open.
2 of the 3 days, the max temperature was 3F higher, the other day it was 1F lower. humidity was lower by 5% 2 of the 3 days.
and for the following nights after these matched days (to see how the attic cooled).
The attic was cooler by 5F and 6F 2 of the 3 days respectively. and warmer one day by 9F, strange.
What is my take away from this? After recording data for a month with the attic open and another with it closed, it was very hard to find days where the outside temperature matched up. These 3 days present a pretty limited data set. However, this data shows that with the vent closed, the temperature was ever so slightly cooler (i guess the ridge vent theory is marginally accurate). However, the attic wont cool off well at night as such by a pretty significant margin.
I am sure that it varies dramatically for each house, but for mine, I am going to leave the vents open, and the power vent running. The data logger cost $14 on ebay, and not I know for what what the most efficient way to run my very inefficient house is....