How do you ventilate a Cape Cod?
A solution when building or retrofitting a cape is to use expensive high R-value rigid foam boards for the critical sloped section. If the sloped section is short you can sometimes insert the foam baffles designed to keep insulation away from the eaves vents to allow better ventilation.
How do I air seal my knee wall?
Quote from the video:
Quote from Youtube video: And then put a piece of foam board over them to air seal them. But before I do that I'm going to go ahead and spray some spray foam around all these penetrations.
What is the best method of venting an attic space?
For the best results, place roof ventilation near the roof’s peak and soffit vents in the eaves. Air flows in through the soffit vents and out through the roof vents. Vents come in various styles. We chose rectangular, hooded roofing vents and rectangular soffit vents because they’re easy to install.
What is a Cape Cod attic?
A Cape Cod home has a unique build. This style is where the cold air soaks into the house through that knee wall in the second story and attic area. So, the options a homeowner has is to spray the roof deck or the knee wall to create an air seal.
What type of insulation is used for knee walls?
Knee Wall Insulation
The best materials for the attic, and thus the knee wall, are spray foam, fiberglass, and cellulose. If you plan to insulate the roof deck of your attic, then you would use spray foam or fiberglass batts. Cellulose is much better suited for the attic flat.
Should a knee wall be insulated?
The knee wall (and attic floor) in the attic space behind should be insulated to the recommended levels. You can also insulate and air seal the rafter space along the sloped ceiling of the knee wall space.
How do you insulate an attic in a Cape Cod?
Insulating a Cape Cod Home Nazareth, PA
For this home the best solution was to spray insulate the back of the short walls on the second floor, dense pack the ceiling and loose fill the small attic area’s with cellulose and spray insulate the roof in one small storage area.
Do Cape Cod homes have attics?
The sloped ceiling sections usually rise to meet a narrow horizontal ceiling in the center of the house. Most Capes have triangular attics behind the second-floor kneewalls and a tiny third-floor attic that is too cramped to stand up in.
Why is my finished attic so hot?
One of the biggest reasons your attic is getting so hot is most likely due to improper ventilation. There are different kinds of vents that your home may have such as turbines, box vents, ridge vents, and power vents and the size of those vents needs to be proportionate to the size of your attic bedroom.
What is an attic knee wall?
An attic knee wall is a vertical separation between attic space on one side and conditioned space on the other side.
How do you frame a knee wall in an attic?
Quote from the video:
Quote from Youtube video: In these studs. You could of course just nail them in place. And this is just to show you that I set up the cutting station for this new wall up in the attic.
How do you insulate a walk in attic?
Quote from the video:
Quote from Youtube video: If you have a piece of plywood for your access door check the framing around where the where the attic door actually sits measure it and then get some foam weather stripping.
Can you have too much insulation in your attic?
It’s possible to over-insulate an attic as too much will cause moisture buildup and eventually result in mold. Eventually, adding more insulation leads to diminishing returns in trapping heat as well.
What are vent chutes?
Vent chutes, also called soffit baffles or air chutes, are these styrofoam or cardboard covers that you put at each soffit vent to block blown insulation from clogging it and to guide the air coming in from your soffits up and over the insulation.
Does a finished attic need to be vented?
Does a finished attic need to be vented? Yes, but it will need to be done differently than an unfinished attic. It is common for homeowners to turn their attic into a room as they outgrow their home.
How can I vent my attic without soffit vents?
One great alternative to a soffit ventilation system is to install an intake vent right at the lower edge of the roof. They call this a venting drip edge. The venting drip edge seems to be the easiest and most common way to go.
Are ridge vents better than roof vents?
Roofing contractors consider ridge vents to be the most preferred option when ventilating the roof of any home. Ridge vents are less invasive than other vent types while remaining the most cost-effective and energy-efficient compared to other roof vent types.
