Ridge Vents with Whole House Fan
My roofing (GAF 50yr comp shake) sub is saying that we cannot use a standard ridge vent with a whole house fan.
He says that the whole house fan shoves dust up into the net-style ridge vent and clogs it up, reducing it’s effectiveness over time. Once it is clogged there is no effective way to clean it. He is proposing a few “mushroom” vents as an alternative.
Have you all heard of anything like this ridge vent clogging thing with the whole house fan? Any validity to this?
My thought is 7 mushroom vents will not be as effective at ventilating each rafter bay as the continuous ridge.
Thoughts very welcome.
Wylie
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right” Henry Ford
Wylie
Success = Work+ Risk + Luck, in that order. Muriel Seibert
Replies
Not to mention how ugly 7 mushrooms on the roof will be!
I hadn't heard that, but there's a certain logic to it. Even without a whole house fan, the air movement in the attic may eventually carry enough "stuff" into the ridge vent to impede the amount of air exhausted.
Mushroom vents may be a bit ugly, but eyebrow vents are pretty unobtrusive. I have five of them on the back side of my roof - opposite the street.
It would be a lot of work, and therefore expensive, but you could build a custom ridge vent. I did that on my copper roof, based on the detail from the CDA web site.
-- J.S.
Can you put in a gable vent with a damper on it that opens when the whole house fan comes on?
He's full of it. We've had ridge vents and whole house fan for years with no sign of this problem. The mesh in the ridge vents isn't that "tight" -- it's just intended to keep rain from splashing in.
The air from the soffits is probably dustier than the air your whole house fan blows up into the attic.
Thanks all for replying. My thought is similar - the regular air flowing through the ridge vent is likely as dusty as the air blowing up to the attic from the whole house fan.
Cheers
Wylie
Success = Work+ Risk + Luck, in that order. Muriel Seibert