Can Adding Ridge Vents Lower Your Energy Bills? 

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Roofer for 12 years here. 1. don’t reuse the old ridge cap unless you tar down every tab. Once the tar strip is broken they will NOT seal back down with the sun. 2. At the beginning and end of the ridge vent install a couple ridge cap under the ridge vent. This prevents water from getting in under the ridge vent. 3. After you do step 2 you don’t need to let the ridge vent over hang the roof any or need to lace in the ridge cap where the ridge vent ends. Just cut the ridge vent flush at the end of the roof. Then at the end where it meets the valley or you finish cap it off exactly how you did with your last one. 4. You can’t use a pneumatic nailer with ridge vent. There isn’t a nailer that has long enough nails and the nailer is likely to break the ridge vent. It is always installed by hand nailing. 5. 2.5” roofing nails is recommended for ridge vent. The nails must puncture the ridge vent, any shingle underneath, and fully penetrate the decking for maximum holding strength. This is why you can’t use a pneumatic nailer, most only go up to 1 3/4” nails. 6. As pointed out elsewhere in the comments the old vents need to be taken out. They will compete with the ridge vent and essentially cycle air in from the mushroom vent and out of the ridge vent. Reducing the efficiency of airflow from soffit to ridge vent.

One thing I rarely hear mentioned about installing solar panels on your roof is the added shade and air gap. You're basically putting up an umbrella over whatever portions of your roof the solar panels are sitting on. That can go a long way to reducing the roof's temperature in the Summer months.

Happy to see you picked a cold day to do this, doesn't seem hot at all. 🤣Cool project and loved the drone shots! To bad you didn't see much improvement in the bedroom temps though!

Ridge vents help with increasing the life expectantcy of your roof, and does allow your attic to cool faster, but the real problem is that heat rises no matter what, and your ceiling, vapour barrier and isulation also trap this heat inside the building. To complete the attic venting process the old vents should be removed and roof patched. Baffles should be installed against underside of roof sheating from where the soffit meets the attic insulation at the tops of the walls, which is easily done if you have access to attic. For energy efficiency, extra air sealing and added isulation in the attic will help with inside temps as long as theres good enough air flow above said insulation. Also balancing your hvac system for warmer months by making adjustments to move more air to upper floors and adding good blinds or darkening drapes to all south facing windows can make a huge difference as well.

If any of your attic is used for storage be sure to cover it with a tarp before you cut the ridge vent. We put in a ridge vent when we re-roofed our house and completely didn't think about all of the bits of shingle and sawdust that fell down into the storage area. We were cleaning the mess off of storage tubs and boxes for months.

I like the outro. Thanks for being honest. My neighbor had a "hot room" during the summer and a "cold room" during the winter. They found out that the builders never put insulation over the ceiling in that room. I know you've done a ton of stuff to that room so maybe it's more of a A/C issue. Possibly having a return duct in the ceiling in that room might help keep it cooler. Keep up the good work Bob and team. I just heard Forby is moving up there. Having the team together is going to be nice. Congratulations.

10 degrees cooler in the attic right on the other side of the wall will mean your cooling system will be better able to cool the space and you should use less energy to do so. Think of the difference when it’s 90 vs 80 outside. You should also consider a radiant barrier in the attic. I have a very similar finished attic space and added a ridge vent and radiant barrier last year and it made a HUGE difference.

Check to see if you have insulation baffles! They keep a continuous air gap between your insulation and sheathing from the soffit all the way up to the ridge vent. Not only do they help keep your place cooler in the summer, but they prevent ice dams from forming in the winter!

I put ridge vents on my roof last year. That 10° attic difference will still help the overall efficiency of your house. That temperature is just some sheetrock and insulation away from your living space so it will definitely help by being lower in the summer. I had a room that was always hotter/colder than the other rooms. For years. Turned out an elbow section of ductwork in the attic on that run was broken clean through. It was hidden underneath the insulation sleeve so looked fine to the naked eye. Conditioned air was simply leaking out into the attic instead of going into the room! It was a really quick fix. Check your ductwork for leaks, that might be your only problem. But the ridge vents were still a good plan.

I just had my roof replaced 2 weeks ago and was told by my roofer that you can't have ridge vents and solar fans working at the same time because they basically pull air in from the solar fan and back out of the ridge vents making it impossible to cool your attic. I ended up having my 2 solar fans removed and it has make a great difference in keeping the house cool.

My current house has a tile roof and seemed to hold the heat. I had it repainted a near white gray with an additive for reflecting sunlight. Had one whirlybird replaced with a solar powered extraction fan. Turns on once the roof space hits 25 Celsius. This works well and the ac only gets a run of the days start pushing towards 40 c in Oz.

When I re-roofed my house I used vented soffit and a ridge vent. Being in Wisconsin, it was fine in the summer, but in the winter, it got too cold. I did mine in phases, as I was doing most of the work myself. So for the remainder of the project, I spaced out the soffit vent and used a gable vent, somewhat reducing the airflow and it helped a lot.

I just installed a ceiling fan in my living room. I am hoping that is the last time I need to go into my attic. BUT I totally agree with you - make a list of things you need to do in there and do them in the fall/winter. I did my project in phases trying to do the attic stuff in the early morning or late night.

One hot days we turn on bathroom exhaust fans on the top floor. That pulls out the hot air and makes it much more comfortable on the really hot days.

I would suggest checking if the vents in your house have some that are closed or have any blockage that is preventing enough air to get in the upstairs rooms. If you have not only hot summers but cold winters, you'll want to close up the upstairs vents and open the downstairs vents to channel the hot air to the bottom floors in the winter and then do the reverse in the summer to keep the cold air upstairs to help balance the air flow. This is just something all homeowners should do. For those with a bungalow (1 floor), you won't have to do anything likely. A costly alternative would be to get a minisplit for the 2nd floor and run the vents through any open attic spaces and vent down from the ceiling. This way you can have a 2 zone system and put less burden on the main unit on those really hot days.

Make sure to add some kind of vapour permeable barrier over any blown-in insulation around the soffits (and preferably over all of your insulation). With increased airflow in the roof you'll start to see your insulation get blown away from the edges of your roof and piling up in the center which will impact the insulation value - costing more to heat and cool your rooms because of losses. Even if you have fiber wool batten insulation this is a good step you can take to help with energy efficiency as it prevents a phenomenon called Wind Wash. This is where air movement over the top of insulation pulls warm air from between the fibers and lowers its R value. Ventilating an attic space is great for humidity control but you're more likely to get savings from additional insulation improvements as this will keep heat out in the summer and warm in during the winter. It can seem counterintuitive to add insulation for cooling but it's just a tool to slow the transfer of energy between two extremes of temperature. Coolboxes work because they are well insulated!

I put in the ridge vent when I replaced my roof. I also install radiaflect on the bottom side of the rafters in the attic to guide the heat from the soffit vents to about 1 foot below the ridge vent. It has made about a 20 degree difference and my KWH usage is down about 20% from last year.

Look into some attic foil or double bubble reflective insulation, I installed some in the garage and I noticed it was only 5° warmer than outside which was a big improvement compared to it being 20° hotter, I've also heard it you double layer it with a 1in gap of dead air it can improve it more

I really appreciate your video. I'm getting ready to add a ridge vent to my garage where temperatures can soar to 130 F in the summer! You provided several helpful tips that will benefit my project.

Hi Bob, I am an "Energy Advisor" for a municipally owned power company in Virginia. Thanks for the awesome content! This video was very helpful, a real world result of some of the text book training I have received. Every home is as unique as the individuals who live in them but they all have many things in common. I do believe a 10 degree difference in the attic should have some positive effect on your comfort and energy usage. Could you make a video about adding a radiant barrier in the attic? If you do I would love to watch it.

I'm a contractor that works for realtors, engineers and inspectors and I feel you when it's hot. I've had to put in 2 attic stairs recently and I was soaked in sweat. Also, it makes you feel bad for people who do roofing all day. Also, the attic fans will help a lot. When it comes to them check to see if the blades will spin freely, if so, then you only need the temperature Guage replaced but if they're locked up then you need a new fan. Bonus rooms are notorious for having cooling problems. Get a portable air conditioner that oscillates and it will help a great bit.

If you’re in Texas like me (105°-109° this week) then the more air circulation your attic has the better… so I’d recommend adding an attic fan (electric powered or solar or wind powered)! You can actually add an intake fan at one end and an exhaust fan up high at another end because you don’t want to create positive or negative pressure in your attic (unless your house is super well insulated from the attic which it usually isn’t). Positive pressure will push warm attic air into the rest of the house and negative pressure will pull cool AC air from the rest of your house into the attic.

I love that you take the extra time to put in both F and C Makes me understand your video much easier.

There are other considerations for ridge vents including moisture build up. The boys room also, probably doesn't have enough insulation and its not installed correctly plus, there is probably WAY too much air movement through the structure. AIr movement will KILL R value and make rooms very uncomfortable. Also, when adding eave vents, make sure there is MORE square/ft air opening than in the ridge vent, a critical element that a lot professionals miss. Great work Bob, you have my respect. I don't do roofs any more. Too old.

1984 Cape Cod PA home owner here. Our upstairs is a furnace in the summer. A ridge vent isn't going to do anything for you room temps. Get those attic fans working and get some ceiling fans in your rooms. Maybe consider some extra insulation on the other side of the room walls. Also if you have central air just double check that the return vents actually go somewhere. In our master bedroom the return vents are just holes in the wall that don't go anywhere. When the system is running you can hold a piece of tissue paper on the vent and it will just fall off.

I'm an HVAC contractor and I'm a BPI Building Analyst. Air movement in an attic will reduce the effectiveness of your insulation. The key for insulation to perform properly is a lack of air movement. The most efficient way to insulate an attic is to install baffles under the sheathing and then insulate under the baffles. Then you close any gable vents and insulate the gable ends. It sounds counter intuitive, but that system works far better than anything else. I've been in hundreds of attics around Phoenix, Az. I've seen attic temps over 160˚F. Sealed attics are typically 8 to 12˚F warmer than the house. Vented attics are always 45 to 65˚F warmer than the house. The building sciences have greatly improved in the past 30 years. We have learned than many common practices were and are the wrong way to do the job.

If you have access to the underside of the roof, you should consider a radiant barrier retrofit. The reason why you didn't see much difference in the room temperature is that a good part of heat transfer to the room is through radiant heat. My house was due for a re-shingle, and I had some bad roof sheathing spots, so I opted to just do a total tear-off and replace with radiant barrier sheathing. It has made a huge difference in temperature, especially in my garage. It put much less strain on my air conditioning unit as well.

Your original attic space temperature didn't really seem that hot as our attic (before additional venting) temps ran about 145 degrees during the summer with mid 90 degree outside temps. We didn't use the ridge vent, but with additional turbine vents we were able to reduce the attic temp to about 115 degrees. Where you are taking the temperature may make a difference as well.

Besides soffits vents and a ridge vent, you also need baffles inside your attic. These are pressed along the line of the roof to keep your insulation from blocking the soffits. If your insulation covers your soffit, you block the "path" that the air needs to travel between the soffit and the ridge vent.

Yup, did one of these on my place when I built my roof 6 years ago. Roofer buddy hadn't done one before here, but just followed by instructions. I guess I was just ahead of my time.

Thanks for the helpful advice. On a hot day the peak of my attic gets to 140. Unfortunately. whoever did the roofing put about twice as much ridge venting over my garage as over my living spaces. The venting for the latter is grossly inadequate. I've decided to wait until the shingles need replacing to fix that. For now, I'm protecting living areas with 16" of blown-in insulation covered by attic foil. That latter makes a 10 degree above and below difference.

We had a similar situation with an upstairs room that gets pretty hot (attic space above & on one side), but also has garage below it. I found in our case that just insulating the aluminum garage door dropped the temperature in the garage significantly, which also dropped the bedroom temperature noticeably. Not sure what's under this room, but worth looking at. Also - radiant barrier & additional blown in insulation in attic should help as well, but definitely wait for cooler weather to do that! (BTW - Here in Texas we're regularly at triple digits and around here 80%+ humidity, so we know hot!)

One of main reason to install ridge vents (as far as I read about roofs) is to remove humidity from the roof structure. Especially if you install insulation. In such case remember to leave some space (2-3 cm, this depends on the length of the roof from the ridge to the gutter) between the insulation (mineral wool) and the sheathing. This will further reduce temperature in the attic and probably in the boys' room to.

I installed a radiant Barrier (attic foil) and it made a huge difference both in the attic and in the room. Worth checking out.

I really like how you did the picture-in-picture sponsor! Normally I skip over the sponsor part, but I wanted to see your technique on cutting away the old roof for the ridge vent, so I did listen to the sponsor piece. I'm totally stealing that technique for future YT videos!

Yeah, summer heat on a roof is no joke. Props to all the roofers, and ILTMS team, for being tougher than the heat! 🥵

As an owner of a house referred to as a story and a half, the half story upstairs is notoriously hard to maintain a temperature the same as the main floor. It has to do with the sloped ceiling. The ceiling is only like 6" at most away from the shingles especially in "older" homes which absorb alot of heat from the sun. Also the slope ceiling is typically hard to keep vented as there isn't enough room for insulation and an air gap between the insulation and the roof deck, which is needed to keep ventilation. Hope this helps

Installed a gable attic fan last weekend and that's the best thing I have installed in the house. Made a 30 degree difference in the attic and AC was able to keep up in the upstairs rooms

When we had our roof redone we had ridge vents installed. One thing they did was to cover the gable vents up on the inside. That forces a better airflow out the ridge vent. Also it dropped our attic temp down by about 20 degrees. It didn't change the inside temperature much, but it made a significant drop in our electric bill!!!! By adding the ridge vent our ac was able to operate more efficiently. We already had soffit vents in place so we didn't have to add those.

If that room faces south, it's gonna be hot. Sun orientation makes a huge difference. Here's why We all know, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west BUT the tilt of the Earth during summer takes the sun on a southern trajectory during its path. This means south facing elevations get more direct sunshine in summer.

The heat is on. This is very interesting and very informational video this week. Very nice video this week guys. Can't wait to see more videos soon. Keep up the great craftsmanship and hard work my friend. Bob and the gang. Keep making. God bless.

Can’t wait for your next video, “Installing a Mini-Split in a Second Floor Bedroom”.

Your exit intro or extro earned a new subscriber. Also like your honesty on the kitchen cabinet builds (should your or shouldn't you). Great content. Thank you!

that is why you work at dawn. It is the coolest time of the day. Increase your attic insulation where you can. Specifically on the walls of the upstairs bedrooms. The increased ventilation will help over all.

This is exactly what I'm planning on doing on my porch roof. Thank you!

I work in construction in a desert-like environment where temps goes to +40 °C, and we have a mid day break during summer so no one is hospitalised. If you want to work in the summer without issues then ovoid cotton and get some moisture wicking clothing preferably white in color, cover your head and neck, and pick a day where the humidity is low and spray some water on yourself and you're good to go for few hours as long as you're hydrated. I know that you can't wear what I just described because your shooting. But I'm just throwing an info for anyone who needs it.

Make sure the insulation in the attic is not blocking your soffit vents. That’s a very common problem and could be part of the issue. But having that 10 degree drop will help your roof to last a little longer since it doesn’t get so hot

You might want to take out the old roof vents. The ridge vents work on convection, the heat needs to raise through the roof. Also, how well this works is gonna depend on if there is any vent space in the wall. They make plastic under roof vents that go in the wall to allow for air movement. If the wall cavity is stuffed full of insulation the air won’t move and it can be bad for your roof decking. Also, grab an old couch cushion and use the foam inside of it to kneel on. It won’t slide on the roof and insulates you from the heat.

I actually just had a new roof with ridge vents installed earlier this week. When the roofer was going through what their plan was for the roof he made mention that the ridge vents they install won’t make a huge difference to the inside of the house. I had the round vents previously if anyone was curious.

When you have the house re-roofed consider adding 2" rigid foam under the roof or tear off the roof decking in the problem area, remove the insulation, spray foam and add vent baffles.

I love the pool noodle pads on your ladder. Genius!

Damn Bob LOL! I live in KY too and you sure picked a hot month to do this. I WISH I could do this for my mom but her roof has a 40 degree pitch and just no. She needs an attic fan too. It's the exact same story with the upstairs bedrooms. You could argue no one sleeps there but it's also driving up her HVAC costs.

Nice work Bob & at least now you have more ventilation in your attic! Also, I am fairly certain that on a hot day it will indeed be hotter on the roof! Stay cool! 😉😂👍

Another way to cool your roof: solar panels. The air gap between the panel and the shingles acts like a beach umbrella. Great in the summer - but watch out for the avalanche in winter because all the snow comes off once you have finished shoveling the driveway (special feature). Obviously way more expensive than a ridge vent but was a surprising benefit besides lower electricity costs

that's a super interesting experience you make here, I like this concept of this video.

You already have venting (not ridge venting), but vents none the less (and soffit vents as well). The ridge vent basically just took the load off of the existing vents, hence there was little change. Had you had no venting, and added the ridge vent, there would have been a big difference. At this point, you're more than well vented, so you might want to consider something like what they call a whirlybird vent, a wind-driven vent that draws air out of the attic, and actively draws in more in via the soffit vents. A 3rd option would be a powered roof vent that actively draws air in like the whirlybird, but it's powered... either by running power to it or also there are solar powered versions these days as well.

Good video, nice to see I'm not the only one that sweats... beats heat exhaustion. Good job.

Allot of the time you need to up grade your soffit vents. Make sure you have self closing vents with screens to protect the house from ingress of flammable material if there ever is a fire in the area. With out such protection a fire next door or worse a fire storm can allow embers to get into the house and set it on fire. I would have also put in a fire screen on the ridge line too.

Have you considered a mini-split AC for that room and then isolate it from the main system? There is likely a flow problem with your main unit to that room and it may be easier and more efficient for that area of the house to be on a separate unit.

The reason I installed ridge vents on my roof was to avoid cooking my shingles. If your attic gets too hot underneath the shingles have nothing to help them resist the heat they absorb and they wear faster in the sun. The theory as explained to me is that the asphalt gets it's oils baked out prematurely and wears faster. The roof I replaced got "cooked" in some of the heat vulnerable areas and you could see a network of little pock marks in those areas. We're pretty energy conscious nowadays but a primary purpose of roof vents is to protect and/or preserve the shingles. If you saw the temperature drop in those tight attic spaces you accomplished the primary mission. In the living spaces, inside your envelope of house insulation you may not see as much change, as you noted. Attic ventilation does make a difference in terms of cooling, particularly if you have a well placed powered fan, but protecting the roof and its structure is their primary, bare minimum function. Good attic ventilation also helps fight wood rot from moisture build up in the winter: A lot of bathroom fans vent into the attic and not through the roof. Without adequate ventilation, water can excessively condense on the roofing nails In winter and cause problems. My guess is that you did yourself a favor and added a few years to the life of your roof given the tight, hot attic spaces you showed us.

One thing I found in researching this topic for my own house is this: There are 3 types of vents in your roof: intake vents, exhaust vents, and utility vents. Intake lets cool(er), fresh air into the attic, exhaust lets hot, stale air out, and utility vents are for things like bathroom vents, water heaters, plumbing, and furnaces. We are only interested in the first two right now. There are several types of both intake vents (soffit, drip-edge, fascia) and exhaust (ridge, turbine, box, gable, and powered fan- both solar and mains electric), and as Bob said you need both intake and exhaust. However, each subtype of vent is designed to work as the only one of its type, so combining a ridge vent with gable or turbine vents actually interferes with the effectiveness of both vents, so you’ll want to remove the other vent (seal up gable vents) before adding a different one (ridge vent). Bob, you might want to make sure your gable vents are sealed off, then see it your ridge vents are working better.

Thanks for this epic video! This video was recommended to me by YT again, now a year later. Coincidentally, now is when we’ve had a few storms here in San Antonio, and am having my roof inspected for damage. I wondering if I can add this improvement to the roof if and when it gets replaced. Can we get an updated video now that we’re a year later?!

Between 5 am and 10 am is the coolest time of the day, I've been working outside in these times to stay cool this summer

I really appreciate this video because I recently replaced a 22 square roof on my mom's 1970 ranch style home with gable vents. Everyone kept saying "aren't you going to put in ridge/soffit vents!?!" It has had a traditional capped ridge for 50 years without an issue. Adding the ridge vent just adds cost and risk of water entry during high winds in our area.

Adding curtains made a huge difference in the heat temp for our second floor. It’s crazy.

Even though it didn't lower the temp in the room, lowering the attic temp by 10 degrees should save on AC.

We actually just did this on our house as part of an overall roof repair. Already our attic doesn't feel like an inferno anymore during hot days.

Thanks for this. I actually already I a ridge vent and was wondering how much it was helping as it was installed before we bought the house.

Adding two attic fans that exhaust out the side of the house is another idea. Safer to install and do any repairs on, if you've got access to the attic areas you mentioned. However, using air convection to exhaust hot air and bring in cool air costs nothing, adding a fan or two will cost, unless you go solar powered fans.

One thing to be aware of is that mice love to chew into plastic roof vents. You may need to install a metal mesh to prevent their ingress.

How did you know I’m currently working to vent out my attic. I’m going to TRY to get my attic fans working first…but this might be my Step 2. Thanks as always for this amazing content.

Huge kudos to Bob for tackling this project. It looks like it was hot.

I know the tape measure running away wasn't helpful to the project, but it made me laugh so much

replacing those attic fans will probably make a notable difference, it'll draw air through the soffit out the roof

13:00 i think it depends on the area you live too if you should put these in or not, as the may keep the temperatures down in the summer you will loose a lot of heatin energy in the winter if the wind is "blowing" through even if the rooms are insulated

Hot/cold spots in the home? Try leaving the central heat cool system fan/blower ON ALL THE TIME, turn on the ceiling fan in reverse in the summer to help pull cool air up and leave it on ALL THE TIME. If you have a programmable thermostat stop using it to bump the temp up and down during the day, set it on the desired temperature and let it run, it creates less demand and less run time just to maintain a set point, (not that it currently matters because units are running constantly). Use cheap fiberglass filters for best airflow. Make sure all your vents are not blocked or not closed off, same goes for return air. Check and see if you have supply and return air vents in each room, if you don’t have return air in the bedrooms you made need to trim the bottom of the doors off to allow airflow if you like to close doors. Get the system serviced, to make sure it’s functioning properly. Get a cheap straw hat to keep you cool outside, it’s like carrying an umbrella over you head.

the problem for you boys room is most likely a combination of the vaulted ceiling having lower insulation value of the rest of the house, and the fact bonus loft rooms are usually afterthoughts for your ventilation system. you either oversize it to handle the ac season (more expensive) or size it for heating (cheaper). since the rest of you house will assist in warming the loft you need less supply air thus less cooling in the summer. the best ways to remedy this would be upgrade the insulation value (very costly and odds are not feasible for vaulted without major reno, or add more airflow to that room. since supply ducting would also be very costly to install with out major reno adding more return air would probably be the best option. add a 6 inch run from the room to your closest return chase and you will notice sizable difference ass it will effectively "pull" more air through you supply duct

We didn't have window screens on our 3rd floor so the risen-heat never escapes properly. Maybe a proper awning over your boys wide-open window will shade the sun and vent the quickest. Our home also came with a Breathe system that vacuums out stale air to the roof and dehumidifies.

We have an attic fan, it brings the temp in the attic down about 30ºF as you noticed also. The difference is with the AC off in the house it actually feels like it cools down a bit when I turn the fan on. Might be psychological though...

You know what doesn't suck....working on the Ghia😉 hope she's coming along nicely👌🏻 Great video!

Most likely an inadequate insulation problem. You also need venting in the area of the roof where the rafters have drywall on them ( angled part of ceiling /wall) from the top to the bottom for proper airflow from soffit to ridge.

If you are venting common attic space, I would recommend never installing the venting on lower ridges, only the at the highest peak. If venting is installed on varying levels, the lower of the vents can actually end up serving as intake, pulling in more air. If it’s not common or shared attic space then that shouldn’t be an issue though. In terms of the ridge cap shingles, generally your want to run a few on either side of the opening first before installing the venting, then lay the ridge vent to overlap over the installed ridgecap.

You cannot reuse old ridge cap and you have to take out and close off those old vents other wise it’s canceling itself out and venting even less. Also vent doesn’t go all the way to the edge it should be about 2 ft back off the edge

Pretty impressive work, Bob! Well done! 😃 And since you're having so much fun in the roof... 😬 How about putting solar panels there as the next project? 😬 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

lack of a return vent in the hvac system can make the rooms feel very warm even if it's cooling.

You should bring your blower up to blow away sawdust it is slippery on a slope, also yourself more room between ridge and discarded materials. Thing is that once you slip you gain momentum, and not being on the roof very often makes it extra dangerous. So what I have done at several different homes I have lived in is in the access opening to room I put a box fan so it blows air into the attic

More than likely you don't have sufficient return air pulling from that room back to your furnace. If you could add another return or two up there (high on the wall) it would make a big difference. Second floors are always the hardest to cool because heat rises, so you can never have too much return air coming from the second floor.

I grew up in what was basically a steeple. It was a giant A and I lived at the top of it. What we finally did was put what my dad called cheater fans in the vents. It pulled more A/C upstairs and they could run when the AC was off to help bring cool air upstairs

Bob, check for return air in the rooms having issues. If there's no way to push the old air out, then its harder for the newer conditioned air to go in.

Roofer here for 1 days I spay foamed my attic in an old apartment I rented I sprayed every corner where the trusses met the drywall and where every dry wall met another also random cracks i put all the insulation back and some because the old wasn’t covering enough the old was sagging under at the level of the bottom cord of the trusses not good. Made a big difference before If you touched the inside ceiling you could feel the heat after is was warm but not nearly as hot

As for your ends, you are supposed to have the lower part of the ridge Under the ridge vent at least 12 inches, and NEVER have the lower ridge cap laying UP onto the raised ridge vent. You are creating an opening where water can and will flow down under the lower section of ridge cap. Also, NEVER REUSE ridge caps, or pretty much any shingle for that matter. The tar/glue is a One and Done, not just for water, but also for wind and of course Ice/Snow. Ridge caps or just plain shingles are relatively inexpensive. A lot less expensive than the water damage that will happen when reusing old shingles.

love your honest reviews !

If that room is still hot, more than likely it’s because it’s on the weather side. Or you have a damper somewhere that is closed that should be open to send air up into the upstairs. Been doing HVAC a couple years now and that’s what the cause is generally.

The sweat on your clothes killed me lmao

I put up an FM antenna on my roof on a nice 70* day, and the roofing shingles were hot enough to burn you. I'm wondering what's a worse job, laying asphalt or working on a roof. Both are hot, one you worry about getting hit by a car, the other falling off the roof. In both you're going to suffer from heat.

Would have been awesome to measure your air conditioner usage before/after on the same type of days. You may find it lowered your electric bill.

thanks for sharing

Well, I'm no roofer but I do know a little physics and temperature typically moves from hot to cold. This would mean that if the peak of attic was at the same temperature as outside, you wouldn't get any heat transfer to the outdoors... The bad news is that in winter, hot air rising and meeting the cold outside air through the vent, you might actually pump the hot air out of your house... I don't know if that's true but you might want to look into it.

I’d be interested in the energy bill for your AC. Maybe the air flow isn’t better to that room but is your overall bill better as a result of a cooler attic? That would tell me it’s useful or not