Alright, you just realized you don’t have a roof vent. One way to tell you don’t have a vent is if you live in a snow belt and had ice dams this year or any other year. Another sign that there is no roof ventilation is that the asphalt shingle roof you have is not durable. It curls and becomes brittle and cracks within a few years of installation. These are sure signs that your vent isn’t working or maybe you don’t have a vent at all.
What can you do about it?
There are options. One of the options is to try to create an air passage by adding a combination of soffit and ridge or gable vents. The idea is to get some convection. Sometimes we see that there is no opportunity to make an airway, so this option might not work.
Another option might be to remove all of the roof insulation and replace it with one of the newer, more efficient spray foam insulations that don’t require roof ventilation. This can be quite an expensive solution. It depends on the access you have to isolation. Do you have to remove interior walls and ceilings to get to it? Sometimes, if you have an older home with roof sheathing instead of plywood, this task can be completed from the outside of the home with fewer interruptions to the homeowner.
Depending on roof elevations, a cool roof might be the best answer. If you have dormers and roof-to-sidewall areas, a cool roof may not work depending on elevations. A cool roof is basically a roof that is built high above the existing roof. Depending on the situation, additional insulation and ventilation can be added very easily, or just ventilation, if that is all that is needed. It can be an inexpensive solution to fix a big problem.
