Gehome
07-07-05, 06:04 PM
I have a hip roof colonial. The roof is scheduled to be done in the next week or so. The main house has a crawl space around a finished small room on the 3rd floor. Hips will not be vented. There is plenty of soffit ventilation. Above the crawl space proper vents lead to the space above the ceiling (i'm guessing 3 feet high). I would like to install a solar fan at this 3 foot deep space near the ridge. I chose solar due to the risk of the a hard wired roof fan getting noisy, also winter issues as I am in central MA and unfortunately only the very powerfull single speed fans have humidistats. The question is, I would like to install shingle vent ll on the ridge in addition to the solar fan so at night supplemental ventilation can still occur ,but there are two schools of thought in the industry: Some say it is ok to have both solar and ridge vents while others say the ridge vent (16" away) from the solar vent will short-circuit the soffit vents and make the soffit vents non-functioning. The solar company said they have had success using both a solar fan and a ridge vent at the same time as exhaust vents. Will the solar fan draw air exlusively from the ridge vent (the path of least resistance) which could draw in excess humidity into the crawl space or will hot air rise from the soffits and exit from both ridge and solar vents? I do not have enough linear footage to use only ridge vent, so that is not an option. Should I use ridge vent as a supplemental exhaust vent to the solar vent or should I plug up the ridge vent? The great room will be handled like the main portion of the house (the great room has a double raftered cathederal ceiling). Thanks for your help!! GE