Re: Sleepiness (& happy 4th)

[Guest guest]

I'm going to return my 70 year old house that had an unvented

attic from the time it was built in 1938 until I vented it in 2001,

back to an unvented attic space. From what I've learned 'building

codes', which state that ventilation in attics is necessary' are just

that, " building codes " . They are for people who are " building " . My

house was already built so it doesn't have to come up to " building

codes " . That is what I learned. Buildings built in different eras

were built with different building codes and it doesn't always work out

to take a 1938 house and make changes to come up to 2008 " building

codes " . They are two different creations. One is not necessarily

inferior or needs improving. Simply putting vents in my attic that a

roofer said I needed to bring attic up to " code " , caused nothing but

trouble in my old house, allowing critters to get into attic and build

nests, later die and leave their dead body rotting there, but I had an

ant trail up to attic that I had to get rid of, but mostly it increased

the circulation of " outside air " , which is sometimes quite humid, into

the interior of the house and into interior wall cavities causing all

kinds of problems. Today's houses are built with attics that are

better sealed off from house below. The whole house built today are

much more air tight as we all know. My house just let the air from the

attic into the whole house, like having a bunch of open windows in the

house only they could never be closed no matter how undesireable the

weather outside was, so essentially I had open windows in very hot and

humid weather, even rainy weather; and in below freezing weather.

I have already started to take them out. I had 21 vents taken out a

couple of weeks ago: 14 under soffit vents and 7 passive roof vents and

areas that they were removed were restored with wood and where

appropriate double layer of shingle to try to restore roof back to the

way it was, and I have already felt a GREAT improvement in house. I

had them stop at two vents, a turbine and one is a power vent

temporarily so there is some ventilation up there until I can get the

insulation put back in. I had all old insulation removed and attic

cleaned. As soon as insulation is back, the last two vents will either

be covered over rather than removed, in case I decide to use one or the

other of them; or removed as the others were. Still reading up on

attic ventilation to decide whether to leave any or not but so far

house feels MUCH better but on very humid days the humidity in house

still goes way up, so probably both will be removed.

The attic area was fine before venting and so I think back to no vents

will be the right thing to do but taking my time to decide since I now

have learned what doing the wrong thing can cost lots of $$$...not only

in health costs, loss of job wages (I have only been able to work

parttime due to fatigue), but in damage to home and all the $$$ that

goes with those two things (loss of home value and cost of repairs,

pick one or in many cases BOTH).

>

> Barb, I so agree. My only (and it is an opinion) comment for you

about the attic thing is if you have any vents I believe it is a must

to also have an attic fan.