Re: Smokey smell in my attic

[Guest guest]

The other thing to check for while you're up there - is does the

attic have good (proper) circulation?

Does it have gable vents (two vents on each side of the attic near

the roof line) or does it have the soffit vents/ridge vent combo?

The ideal setup is to have many soffit vents along the underside of

the roof and a ridge vent at the top of the roof line. That way a

natural current is always in action (cool air enters through the

soffits, gets warmed and exits from the ridge vent) all powered 24

hrs a day and 360 days a year by the stack effect (warm air rises).

Hopefully you have that in your house...My house when I moved in only

had gable vents on each side, and the soffit vents were all plugged

with insulation. So NO air movement. The moisture from the house

went up and just stayed there. All of the roofing nails were

rusted. I pulled all of the insulation out of the soffits and added

more. Then had a ridge vent installed and plugged up the gable

vents. Now it's working the way it's supposed to...

>

> I was reading through the Files here and noticed the saved files

> regarding Bob, who died a year ago last January, and it strikes me

> that he described smell in his trailor as 'smokey' since that is

> what my house smells like now in summer. That is smell I am

> describing when I say my house smells like an attic during the

> summer, which drove me out of my house last summer on Sept 7th to

[Guest guest]

,

I've heard that continuous ridge vents are very good. I have good

ventilation in attic. I wish I had gotten the continuous ridge but

too late now, otherwise my roof would have so many holes in it,

would be like swiss cheese.

Anyway, hate to burst your bubble as this was a big surprise to me,

but hot air only rises in the wintertime. In the summer, stack

effect reverses it's direction so can get attic air down into your

house if it isn't sealed up well. I just learned this from trying

to solve my summetime problem.

Reason is this: In an enclosed area, like house, you have

the 'stack effect' as you said. Stack effect is that hot air flows

TOWARD cold air...no matter where it is, up or down. In winter,

cold air is in attic. In summer, cold air is in basement so flow

reverses.

Reason for that is this, as I understand it: In an enclosed space

(I don't know about outside where air is not enclosed), things want

to 'equalize'. When you cool air, it drops it's moisture/water, and

air moleculte actually *shrinks* in size. That creates a low

pressure in enclosed space and warmer air that is holding more

moisture will flow toward the cool space to fill up *absent* space

created by shrinking air mass. (high pressure area= attic, flowing

toward low pressure area= cooler house below). So you cool air in

house and air mass shrinks as you pull moisture out of it. What

once was a " full house of air " , is now not " full of air " , so becomes

a low pressure area that wants more air. Extra air is in attic now

since air molecules up there are becoming larger as they absorb more

moisture (since hot air holds more water) and becomes heavier with

moisture and so they go down stairs *if they can* to fill in the

missing air mass, and perhaps gravity pulling heavier molecules

downward also.

I think everyone thinks air rises since air conditioning is

reasonably 'modern' feature of homes. My parents used to go outside

in the heat and fan themselves. Problem was keeping house warm in

winter without using too much fuel so the discussion of conserving

fuel by insulating attic " because hot air rises " was discussed alot!!

Now it's a new situation but I think 90% of people I talk to,

including people's whose business is strongly effected by air flow

direction will tell you that air rises, so word needs to go out on

this as everything is being set up backwards for summer cooling

problems.

The house is set up fine for winter. Fuel bills aren't too bad and

air smell great in winter and I have never felt sick in house in

winter. I almost moved home this past winter since it doesn't stay

here long, summers getting longer and winter's longer, so stayed in

my temporary place.

>

> > The ideal setup is to have many soffit vents along the underside

of

> the roof and a ridge vent at the top of the roof line. That way a

> natural current is always in action (cool air enters through the

> soffits, gets warmed and exits from the ridge vent) all powered 24

> hrs a day and 360 days a year by the stack effect (warm air rises).

>

>