Water-softened wood can take many forms on a typical residential property: that rotten stump, wood chips in the neighbor's back yard, an unseen roof leak, firewood stored next to the house, deteriorating support posts in the crawlspace, a leaky tile shower, leaky sink plumbing, rotten siding, dirt contacting the house, leaking gutters, a rotten deck, concrete forms left in place in the crawlspace, and so on.
To find these areas, study ant trails in the evening and follow where they lead. You need to do a thorough check everywhere that rot could be occurring and eliminate it before giving up and calling in the cavalry.
Unfortunately, often we take the Band-Aid approach and first try to contain pests with chemicals before (or in lieu of) eliminating their attractants.
Then we are forced to blindly repeat treatments without looking at what the root cause is, or having done anything to remedy it.
Q: You recently made a side reference to ridge vents being good in theory, but not so good in practice. Can you elaborate on that since I am about to put a new roof on?
A: Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no scientific evidence to back up the following: That said, it's odd that of the several hundred "properly vented" attics I have experienced with ridge vents, it is rare to find one that is not hot, even on cooler days.
I personally had a house with ridge vents and it was hot. I installed them because at the time I believed they were superior.
Years ago I went into two identical homes consecutively, side by side — same roof material and color, same roof configuration, same orientation to the sun. One had traditional mushroom vents and bird blocks, the other had ridge vents and bird blocks.
The mushroom-vented attic was comfortable, and the ridge-vented attic was hot.
Mushroom-vented attics built to code are unbearably hot only a few days of the year around here. Not true with ridge-vented attics.
Yet ironically, ridge vents are considered so superior that code requirements are halved by the regulating authorities.
Ridge vents are indispensable for ventilating cathedral ceilings, true. Given all I have seen, I believe ridge vents work well in the lab, but not so well in the field for common attics.
Why? Conjecture leads me to believe installation errors first, reduced code requirements second, and finally, the increased air pressure needed to overcome the downward 90-degree angle to exit the vent (heat rises).
Darrell Hay is a local home inspector and manages several rental properties. |
