Re: Sleepiness / Chris, regarding unvented attic information - - -

[Guest guest]

If you are going to talk to your Dad, below are some links you may

need. You pretty much have to analyize and plan everything yourself

to see if attic is a problem since noone I called believed that in

summer air could come down into house, so kind of like trying to talk

to people about mold exposure. It can be one of those 'do it

yourself' projects unless you meet up luckily with someone who can do

the work and knows this, for some reason little known information.

1.) Link to website of Air Sealers of America- Notice of first page

is a diagram of air flow patterns in typical home. House is a 'split

picture', with left side of house pictured in summer and right side

of house pictured in winter. Key to what arrows means is in far

lower, right side. Notice that 'gray arrows' indicate a source of

dirty air into house. In picture only gray arrows coming from attic

down into house. Of Course we all know here since we read daily on

mold, that there are other sources for dirty air into house, but this

is generality, assuming not a water damaged building where moldey air

can be coming from any area water damaged, so keep that in mind.

This is just picturing source of just 'unconditioned air', i.e. air

from outside or uncleaned area of house. You can pretty much assume

lady in bedroom breathing attic from above has been me!!

http://www.airsealers.com/ME2/Default.asp

In case anyone remains unconvinced of reverse stack effect in

summer..and they will, you can point to Trane Engineering Manual:

http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/vol31_2/index.asp#weather

...also U.S. Dept of Energy, and Honeywell Engineering manual, but

both are pdf files so I can't give link to exact page it dicusses

reverse stack effect.

2.) Reading on history of ventilation, found that purpose of

ventilation is for exhausting moist air from attic IN THE WINTER, not

for cooling house is summer. However I found everyone thinks the

reverse that it is for cooling house in the summertime and therein

lies all the trouble. Studies done in homes in FL and NV showed only

a 3 degree difference in vented versus unvented attics but lots of

additonal moisture.

I have no links to those studies. Just read them and went on.

3.) More on vented versus unvented attics:

http://www.nexgeninsulators.com/index_files/Page602.htm

At the following link, they talk alot about closed cell foam

insulation but there is debate as to whether to use open cell or

closed cell if you use foam insulation in attic:

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-149-unvented-

roof-assemblies-for-all-climates

Icynene.com has alot of info on unvented attics, but anyway, if your

Dad's house was unvented before and had no moisture problems, you

could probably (?) just go back to being unvented without the foaming

if he can't or doesn't want to spend the money on foam. You'd have

to inspect attic to see if there is any evidence of previous mold

problem (i.e. make sure vents were not added to solve a moisture

problem in attic in the first place). In my case, I had the vents

added and there was no indication of moisture problem in attic and I

added them thinking that they would cool off house. (They are

supoosed to cool off UNDERSIDE OF ROOF, and that is all...no affect

on house below except for influx of moisture if it can get into

house, i.e. if house is not air tight.)

My attic showed no sign of mold problem in it, but I believe allowing

the hot humid air down into house through wall cavities might have

started to develop mold in walls since on humid days house smels

moldy and on dry days it smells okay. I can't go to the expense of

opening all the walls but I'm hoping stopping the access of humid air

to wall cavities will stop problem and sealing inside surfaces

through caulking joints, and freshly painting will not allow anything

that got started in walls, if ANY (?), will solve any problems here.

>

>I am going to pass this on to my dad as we here also have an older

home, have not replaced the insalation but done just what you had

done due to advice from builders.